


Chains

by PhoenyxNova



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Slavery, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Angel Sam Winchester, Angel Sex, Angel Wings, Angst and Feels, Angst and Fluff and Smut, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Archangel Gabriel (Supernatural), Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Smut, Gabriel (Supernatural) is Loki, Graceless Gabriel, Injured Sam Winchester, M/M, Possessive Gabriel, Protective Gabriel, Smut
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-08
Updated: 2019-09-24
Packaged: 2020-08-12 00:23:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 9
Words: 23,181
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20162614
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PhoenyxNova/pseuds/PhoenyxNova
Summary: The Archangel Samael was ripped from the arms of his mate and sold into slavery, but that was only the beginning of his problems. Now bruised and broken, he must learn to live with his new master, Loki.





	1. Going Once, Going Twice, SOLD!

Samael shifted where he stood, and moaned softly. The wire mesh binding his wings and keeping them corporeal dug into tender flesh, oozing blood if he pressed against them too much. One painful eye had swollen shut, but he couldn’t even remember why. He could barely breathe against the heavy collar on his neck, forged from his own archangel blade and twisted with dark, forbidden sigils to bind his Grace.

Footsteps approached, and he struggled to lift his head as someone grabbed either arm and dragged him out the door. The summer heat felt blistering and unpleasant, and as he began to sweat he wondered when he’d last drunk any water. He couldn’t remember anymore.

With his one good eye Samael looked out upon the crowd, bustling with activity which all focused around the amphitheater’s stage. Momentarily distracted, he tripped over an old, crooked board, and with all his vessel’s height and bulk, he tumbled down to the sun-roasted wood, smacking his head hard on the platform. With his hands chained behind him, he hadn’t even been able to break his fall.

Something sharp and agonizing struck his back, into the sensitive place between his shoulder blades, and he screamed. Between shouts of “Get up!” and “You’ll regret this, angel,” he tried so hard to maneuver himself back to his feet, tried to bite down on his tongue to keep his voice from crying out, but another agonizing lash to his back had him howling.

The crowd just cheered. They always liked a show, it seemed. They always paid more for a bleeding, limping angel than a shiny, pretty one. Why? He wasn’t sure, and he wasn’t allowed to ask questions.

An unforgiving hand threaded in his hair and yanked it up. He groaned again, unable to keep the tears from rolling down his face. The wire mesh restraining his wings was pulled even tighter, tearing open old wounds. His mouth dropped open to groan, but the handlers used that moment to gag him instead. They never liked it when angels tried to open their mouths in front of buyers.

He was dragged by his hair the rest of the way, and Samael writhed against the pain shooting down his neck, trying desperately to get his feet underneath him. Instead, he was maneuvered down on his knees, his head bowed. Two sets of hands griped either wing, pulling it up and out to display. Once bright white and tipped with old bronze, now they were dingy and bloodied and broken. Now, blood seeped out to further stain his feathers.

“And now we have a special treat for your bidding consideration! Roman Trading and Co. are bidding off a rare angel, one of only a handful: The _archangel_ Samael. He’s tall and strong, and impossible to kill! So he’s a good addition to your household staff, your labor force, _or_ for your _pleasure_.” The announcer cackled, and the crowd laughed. Samael just shuddered. “Shall we start the bidding off at $5000?”

He heard shouts from the crowd, but he’d stopped listening. It didn’t matter who bought him. Nothing mattered. He barely remembered who _he_ was anymore, in the midst of the torture and suffering he’d endured for so long. No one was kind to angels, not anymore. And he’d long lost hope that he’d ever see those he cared most for again. 

Samael kept his head bowed, trembling in agony where he knelt. The pain lancing through his wings kept multiplying, spreading down into his back and out through his limbs. Tears streamed down his face, and though he tried his best to keep quiet, he could not stop himself from biting against the gag and whimpering softly.

He bit harder, and ordered his voice to stop working. He really didn’t want to get struck again, and with the bones in his wing already broken, he didn’t have much confidence in his ability to behave if the handlers struck them. 

He heard the auctioneer ask if anyone would bid $10,000, and he saw someone put his hand up. “$10,000.” The man’s voice had an effect on the crowd. Everyone got quiet.

“$10,000 to Loki, then. Anyone want to bid higher?”

A voice from the back chimed in with $11,000. Loki raised them another thousand. They warred each other, and Loki seemed to be getting more heated. More frantic. Samael supposed it didn’t matter why. When the other bidder got to $40,000, Samael half prayed to deaf ears that Loki wouldn’t win, but the trickster had bid $50,000 and the other bidder backed down.

He only paid fleeting attention to the bidding, instead concentrating with all his strength to keep quiet and still. It didn’t matter who bought him, only that he showed he could be quiet and well-trained. He would do a lot to stop the pain, and he didn’t often like to think about the depths to which he’d sank: owned by the very humans he’d once warred to save; obedient in the face of humiliation; stripped of all his dignity; and increasingly, even his name.

One of the handlers stared to raise a hand, and in an instant, Loki was there to stop him. “Think twice about that,” he hissed. “The angel is my property now. You’re lucky I even paid _this_ much for damaged goods.”

The name ‘Loki’ may as well have meant nothing to Samael, but his voice sounded ancient and terrifying as he spoke to the handlers, and when he heard himself referred to as ‘damaged goods,’ he whimpered softly against his gag, afraid. Samael supposed it was only the truth, after all… but if the timbre of that voice was anything to judge by, he feared he would have another overbearing, abusive owner.

Loki tossed his money to the ground and put a hand on Samael’s shoulder. “You’re coming with me now,” he said in a softer voice.

When a hand touched his shoulder, surprisingly gentle and not painful at all, and the voice of his new owner spoke to him, Samael did not dare look Loki in the eye—that stunt had earned him many sound beatings in the past—and instead struggled to his feet as quickly as he could, hoping vainly to avoid any more painful displays. Undoubtedly, he would be harmed again—no one could ever resist taking out their frustrations on an angel who couldn’t die—but just maybe he could make it through the rest of the day and avoid it. Perhaps Loki would have _some_ mercy… Samael supposed he’d find out soon enough.

Biting around his gag, he forced his legs to work, following the shorter man away from the stage. Another angel went up for bidding immediately afterwards, but the sounds of the crowd and the auctioneer faded as they moved further away.

With his hands bound behind his back and his wings yet restrained with the awful mesh, he found walking to be much more difficult than he’d imagined. His legs shook with every step, his stomach roiled unsteadily, and his balance felt horridly off as he tried to keep up. The crowd had faded behind them by now, and they walked alone. 

Finally, his legs just gave out on him all together, and he tumbled to the ground, groaning half in surprise and half in pain as he knocked his head on the ground. Sand and gravel scratched at his bare skin, and he managed to maneuver himself back up to his knees within a second. But dizzy and dehydrated, he couldn’t maintain it, and when he tried to stand, he fell over again. Even knowing he didn’t have the strength to stand, he struggled valiantly against the ground, whimpering against his gag, desperate to get back to his feet before he earned a beating for his clumsiness.

It wasn’t as if his owner would hold back. No one was around to watch, anyway. 

But Loki glanced around, apparently knowing the danger of helping an angel in the view of the public. There wasn’t a soul around, so he quickly got to his knees and took the gag from Sam’s mouth, fumbling desperately with the canteen he’d carried with him. 

“Drink,” he said, his voice more gentle than it was at the auction block. He set the opening upon Sam’s lips and poured a few drops of water into his mouth.

If he’d been in slightly better shape, he might have stared at his new owner in shock when he was offered water and helped to his feet. He swallowed around a lump in his throat, pathetically grateful, and nodded. “Thank you,” he rasped, throat burning in protest.

It was then he’d gotten his first glimpse at the man, skewed through bleary eyes. Loki reminded him of Gabriel, and it brought tears to his eyes as he stumbled behind him (always behind, never beside, and _certainly_ never in front). He had not seen his beloved Gabriel in so long. Did he even live? What had become of him? Samael had been torn from his arms in the beginning of this hellish enslavement and told he’d been executed. He’d refused to believe it for so long, but… in the end, Samael had somewhat hoped he _had_ died then, even as the thought had made him weep. An execution would have been quick and almost painless compared to the long, bitter agony the angels suffered in slavery. His beautiful Gabriel had not deserved that. Never.

With another glance around to see if anyone had come, and upon discovering they were still alone, Loki put the canteen away and helped Samael onto his feet. 

“We’re almost there,” he said, reassuringly. “Hold it together. It isn’t far now.” He kept whispering soft encouragements, gaze darting around desperately to spy any possible onlookers before they were seen. 

It was only another half mile before they reached Loki’s home. Loki’s home appeared sparse, but functional and somewhat quaint.

He pulled off the bindings on Sam’s wrists, hesitating for a moment before pulling the mesh off his wings. “I just want to see what the damage is,” he said. “May I examine your wings?”

He stood as still as he could as he removed clasps around his wrist, but couldn’t help but groan as the mesh was pulled from his wings. At the request to see his wings, he dropped to his knees and extended them all in one fluid motion, whimpering at the pain that shot through him—but it was less pain than disobeying or hesitating would have brought. “Forgive me,” he said, voice barely a rasping whisper, “I am sorry, I… I am weak, but I will recover. Please, I shall make it up to you. Do not… please do not strike them. The bones are broken, and…”

He snapped his mouth shut, and drew his arms around his chest, shivering where he knelt. Blabbering in front of a new owner was never a good tactic, and certainly shaking like a terrified child wasn’t either. Yet Samael had done both, and he still could not quiet the tremor dancing through his limbs. 

Samael had always seen an angel’s wings as a sacred thing, only presented to those that could be trusted. He dared a glimpse up at Loki’s face, and judging from the saddened look on his face, he might have thought the same thing.

Loki’s touch was gentle, only barely noticeable. “I’m not going to strike you,” he said, trying to keep his voice soft. “Believe it or not, there are some pagans that take pity on the angels.” 

He got up and ran to one of the few bits of furniture he owned, pulling a small first aid kit from a drawer. When he returned, he opened it where Sam could see, so the angel could see what was happening. He pulled some bandages and materials to fashion together a makeshift splint. 

“This may hurt, but I need to set the bones if they’re going to heal,” he explained. A little bit of something that might have been kindness shone through as he said, “C’mon. You’re no good to me like this. I’ll take care of you. I promise.”

Samael didn’t know what to think. He’d not known a single kind touch since Heaven, yet the hands examining his wings felt gentle beyond measure. The voice of his new owner reverberated through him, soothing and oddly familiar.

When he identified himself as a pagan, Samael blinked his one working eye, trying to remember if he’d heard the name ‘Loki’ before. When he remembered, his heart plummeted. Loki: the Trickster; the shapeshifting mystery among the Norse gods of old. Samael had fallen into the hands of an immortal pagan god. Loki said he took pity upon the angels, but was it a trick? Meant to lull Samael into a false sense of security, only to turn the tables on him later for his amusement?

Samael watched as he laid out a first aid kit, working with the materials to create a splint. He nodded at Loki’s warning about the pain, and braced himself against it as the pagan god worked to set the bones. He clasped both hands over his mouth, and bit his tongue hard enough to bleed, but he managed to keep his noises of pain soft and muffled. 

When Loki had finished, Samael was left feeling quite confused. If this were truly a trick, then wouldn’t the god have taken the opportunity to hurt him while working on his wings? Would Loki truly be a kinder owner than he’d ever known? Samael dared to turn his head to stare at the god, blinking away the fog in the one eye he could open.

His heart nearly stopped when he got a good look, his eyes going wide. Loki looked exactly like Gabriel, right down to the warm, honey-gold eyes. And yet, Samael knew it could not _actually_ be Gabriel. Was Loki shapeshifting into a form he’d find more acceptable (or perhaps a form more amusing to the god)? Should Samael say anything about it? Tell Loki the sight of another wearing his beloved’s face tore at him in ways that the chains and whips never could? Beg him to not wear that beautiful face which he had longed to see again (because it wasn’t him, not really)?

No, it probably wasn’t a good idea to question him at all. He swallowed around the lump in his throat, and let his eyes fall back upon the floor. Perhaps Loki thought he was doing him a kindness, and Samael knew better than to complain.

“Thank… thank you,” he murmured. “I shall make it up to you, I swear it. I am an angel of my word.” He paused a moment to gather his nerves, and continued. “My left eye, it hurts—well, you can see it, I am certain. I do not suppose you would have anything in your first aid kit to tend to the swelling, would you?” He did not risk glancing up again, as he did not want to be disrespectful. If Loki truly were going to be kinder, Samael had no wish to get on his bad side. “I never ask for anything, I promise. It will not become a habit.” He bit his lower lip. “But I can tolerate it if you’d rather not…” 

As he spoke, he absently lifted a hand to touch the eye, swollen and heated under his touch. He could not even remember the last time he’d been able to open it. 

“Don’t worry about making it up to me,” the god said, “and don’t worry about asking me for anything. I’ve always had a problem with the humans, and they made it worse by treating the angels the way they are.”

He knelt in front of Samael again and gently tried to examine the swollen eye. “The good news is, it doesn’t look infected,” he said. “That should be easily tended to.” He picked up a cold pack and cracked it over his knee to get it to activate. He shook the pack up and very gently pressed it to Sam’s eye, taking the angel’s hand and giving it a gentle squeeze before moving it to hold the pack in place. “Hold that there. I’m going to get something to clean the blood off of your feathers.” 

He clutched the ice pack to his face, his working eye staring up at Gabriel—no, no, _not_ Gabriel, he chided himself, _Loki_. He needed to get the fact straight in his head, or he’d accidentally call his new master Gabriel, and that would likely not go over well at all. No matter how kind Loki seemed to be, he was yet a god, and the pagans were known for their vanity. He might take it has a high insult if Samael were to call him by the incorrect name.

As Loki left him momentarily alone, he fidgeted, his free hand coming up to tug at the too-tight collar around his neck. He felt flustered and confused, and completely uncertain of what he’d gotten into. Loki seemed genuinely angry at the treatment of the angels, yet he did not seem to shy away from owning one as a slave, as he had bid fiercely to win ownership of Samael. Then Loki had given him water, helped him stand, and now tended to his wounds which such gentleness it seemed he thought of Samael as more than just property. He’d even squeezed his hand before giving him the ice pack, and the angel simply didn’t even know what to make of that.

With his Grace caged, he had no idea if Loki were reading his mind just as angels once did to humans. Was he imitating Gabriel on purpose, trying to be soothe Samael’s anxiety and discomfort? It certainly remained in the realm of possibility, and now that he’d had a few moments to acclimate himself to it, Samael found himself selfishly wishing he’d keep the face… just a little while. If he closed his eyes and listened to Loki’s voice, he could almost believe Gabriel were here with him. He knew he would weep with the agony of his loneliness later—his crushing, suffocating need for his beloved mate, but for now he embraced the longing and vain hope which seeing Gabriel’s face inspired within him.


	2. The Cover is Not the Book

When he returned from the kitchen with a bowl of warm water, he knelt beside the more bloodied of the two wings, wetting a soft towel. “Tell me about yourself,” he said. “What all happened since Heaven lost? I heard stories, but I don’t know what all happened.”

To Samael’s surprise, the trickster god began cleaning his wings. At his request, Samael found himself hesitating. “It is not a pleasant story,” he warned, “but I suppose you know that already.” He shut his eyes, allowing his head to droop slightly. Perhaps it was foolish, but he felt as though maybe, just maybe, he could relax around Loki. “There is not much to tell about angels as a whole. We were taken and enslaved.” He swallowed around a lump in his throat, reaching up to tug at the collar around his neck in a vain attempt to readjust it. “My story is a long, repeating tale of decades of not learning my lesson, and having to endure painful reprimands.” A flare of worry suddenly filled him. “That is to say, you shall not have any trouble from me. I… appreciate your kindness too much.” 

This time, he reached up and touched his collar on purpose. “I had seals placed on my Grace, same as all the other angels,” he commented. “They seared them into the skin of my neck with flaming holy oil, ringing my neck in a collar of brands. I suppose they thought it might be more effective for containing an archangel’s power. But early on, I found a way around these seals. I exerted it and pulled out my archangel blade, and used it to free my cellmates. Four angels fled to safety, but I was trapped. The handlers, they… took my blade, melted it down, and fashioned it upon my neck as a new collar, carving many new sigils upon it to contain me. It was still molten and glowing hot when they forced it on me, and it shrank as it cooled. If you see me tugging at it, it’s… it’s because it is too tight, and sometimes I panic at the tightness around my airway. It can feel as though I’m choking.” He opened his eyes, staring at the floor. “The original seals on my Grace are still there, underneath it. The burns made when this collar was put upon me, even though it took months to heal, could not erase them.”

He sighed, closing his eyes again, mind idly adjusting to Loki’s efforts on his wing. He thought of so much more to say. He’d lost Gabriel, for one… but perhaps that was a conversation for a different day, when he knew his new master a bit better. “The weight it places on my Grace is so heavy, sometimes,” he murmured. “If I seem dazed or slow, it is because of that, not because I am disobedient. As troubling as it is, there remains no way to remove it anymore… not even to adjust its tightness.”

He frowned, thinking of his brothers. Another archangel at full power could hack it off with their own blade, but as far as Samael knew, he was the only archangel left alive (though he’d heard rumors of Michael being owned by a trader in Australia). He hazarded a glance at Loki. “I can still work to a satisfactory level for you, I promise. I appreciate your kindness more than I can express, and you… you will not regret buying me.” 

Samael’s eyes stung with tears at the humiliation the words brought, and he adverted his head quickly, hoping Loki had not seen. Even now, after so many beatings had made it clear he could never afford to answer any differently, he still felt so ashamed to submit himself before another as though he were nothing at all—even one seemingly as kind as Loki. But Samael knew his situation—he was now chained and owned, no better than a commodity. Once he was a ruler of Heaven alongside his brothers, powerful and mighty. Now he had been yoked and collared by man, and forced to endure their twisted whims. 

Loki couldn’t help himself. He touched Samael’s collar, eyes flicking up to a spot on the floor. Sam curiously followed his gaze and saw a part of the floor that stuck up slightly. He knew better than to ask what it was they were looking at, but he couldn’t help but be just the slightest bit curious.

He kept his head turned away as he failed to contain his tears, hoping to retain some small scrap of dignity before his new master. But then Loki moved to sit before him, fingers clasping Samael’s chin and urging him to meet his eyes. Humiliated and red-faced, he complied.

Preparing for a backlash, he set his towel down and shifted so he was in front of Samael. He gently moved the angel’s chin so he could look into his eyes. “Don’t cry, Sammy,” he said, pure affection in his voice. “Please don’t cry.” 

He hesitated for a moment before unwrapping the scarf from his neck. He let the bit of fabric fall to show the scars in the shape of grace-tamping sigils. 

Nothing could have prepared him for the sight of Loki’s neck. He narrowed his eyes, confused as to what he even looked upon. Scars ringed his neck, in the form of… _what? _Grace-sealing sigils?

Samael’s eyes went wide, snapping back up to meet Loki’s gaze. And all at once, it became too much. He could no longer control his tears.

“Please,” he begged, sobbing, “do not do this. I… I think you mean well, but… you’re taking the shape and face of an angel I loved dearly, one who was executed. Please do not pretend to be him.” He covered his face with his hands, weeping loudly, chest heaving with the force of his sobs. “Please don’t… torment me with his face. I could not save him, do you understand? They took him from my arms, and… and… and they _killed_ him, and I could not stop them.” He trembled, unable to look up. “I do not care what face you take, but please, not that one. I miss him too much… I will do anything, please, just do not pretend to be him, not when he is dead and I shall never see him again.”

Samael did not bother with a name, as Loki probably already knew it. If he’d had his Grace, he might have tried to determine if it were indeed Gabriel, but he didn’t have that option available to him. In Samael’s state, he could still feel the press of another’s Grace, but could no longer reach out with his own. 

“Samshine, it’s me,” he insisted, trying to take the frightened angel’s hand. “I’m really Gabriel.” He was on the verge of tears. “When we were fledglings, I convinced you to sneak into Eden with me. We learned to fly together. I would play pranks on Michael and you would be there to bail me out. I would get you into trouble and sneak you right back out.”

He lifted Samael’s chin again. Samael complied, looking into Loki’s eyes that so reminded him of his Gabriel’s. He needed to be able to see his mate’s eyes. His one good eye would suffice for now.

“It was during your first heat that I offered you my feather, because I knew since the beginning that I wanted you to be my mate. We’d been together ever since. I would groom your wings and you would groom mine. Just before we were taken, I even tried to convince you to let me adopt a fledgling so we could raise a child together.”

Tears were readily streaming down Loki’s cheeks now. He took a deep breath and tried to put on a smile. “They were going to execute me,” he admitted. “I was the reason they found out Archangels couldn’t be killed. They wanted to kill me because Raphael told them I’d give them the biggest problems. They wanted to save themselves the trouble of breaking me. They burned their sigils into me. They locked me in a white, soundproof room. They let me out only to ….” he trailed off and gulped around a lump in his throat.

He winced, extending what remained of his wings. While Sam’s were broken, Gabriel’s looked beyond repair. His voice cracked, unable to hold back the sobs anymore. “They tore my wings apart, and I let them. I let them … because they told me you were dead. I let them use me as a guinea pig to see how they could keep the angels in line.”

He glanced back at his wings and looked ashamed. “I heard a rumor that you were alive, and I escaped. I stole some money, hid as a pagan, and prayed every day that I would at least get word whether you were alive or not.”

He cupped Sam’s cheek in his hand, desperate to know if he believed him.

“I spent the last of the money I had to buy you because I didn’t have the strength to break you free. Please believe me, Sammy.”

He blinked through his tears, his sobs growing still. Certainly, some pagan gods had the capability to read minds, but could Loki possess so much power as to know _that_ much? Samael had not thought of Eden in decades, and neither had he recently recalled learning to fly with Gabriel (all memories of his beloved mate had long since become too painful). And they had never discussed the potential adoption of a fledging with anyone other than each other. And would a pagan god take a trick so far as to weep openly before an angel, and lowering himself by showing broken wings?

Samael’s breathing had grown ragged, the collar tight against his windpipe, but he contained any panic which might normally rise up. Instead, he reached out with a trembling hand to touch the scars on Loki’s neck. The scarred skin felt tender and all too real underneath his fingertips. Samael fought against the sigils binding him to drag up a dreg of his Grace—an exhausting exercise he knew he would regret momentarily. He managed to draw it as far as his fingers, if not beyond, and… those scars certainly _felt_ as though they’d been formed by holy fire. They were not cosmetic, nor were they a fluctuating feature of a shapeshifter.

His breath caught, his heart speeding up. Could it really be…?

Loki’s—no, _Gabriel’s_—wings dissipated any possible doubt. Samael moved his quaking fingers to lightly touch the destroyed appendages. Bony and bloodied and broken, and utterly devoid of feathers, Samael released a terrified huff of air. What on Earth had his handlers _done_ to them? Even despite their crippled state, there was no mistaking them. Samael knew every detail about those wings, and most importantly, how they felt to the touch. They were still a part of Gabriel’s true form, and the aura of an archangel’s form could never be duplicated.

His hand slowly rose to ghost across Gabriel’s cheek, and Samael felt at though he couldn’t breathe. “Gabriel?” His thumb stroked his lips, fingers splaying to stroke his hair. Samael touched him lightly, reverently, as though he were holy.

And all at once, the truth struck him. His mate sat before him, weeping and begging him to recognize him. Samael threw himself into Gabriel’s arms all at once, sobbing incoherently, moaning in relief and shame and sorrow mixed together as one. “Gabriel, Gabriel,” he whimpered, face buried against his chest, hands fisting Gabriel’s shirt. “Oh, beloved, what did they _do_ to you? I thought you were dead, I… Oh _Gabriel_… I love you, I missed you, Gabriel, Gabriel…”

As soon as Samael accepted who he was, Gabriel dissolved into tears, holding his mate close to him. Christ, they’d fallen so far. The both of them.

Sam devolved into whimpers of his mate’s name, sobbed over and over again against his shirt. And now Gabriel could see what Samael had become—a slave, beaten and tortured into utter submission. He trembled with shame and fear as he hid his face. What if his mate were disgusted by how far he’d fallen? By his behavior, by… by his very appearance? He said he’d spent the last of his funds to buy him. Would he resent Samael for having given in to his human captors?

“I’m so sorry that I broke under their torture,” he sobbed, “that I gave into their demands and became so subservient. That I could not escape. Oh please, _please_… I know I’m weak, I know it, but please don’t hate me for it, please…”

“Sh, Sam. Even Michael broke. We all did what we had to do to survive.” The tone in his voice was eerily haunting. What torments had Sam’s beloved Gabriel gone through? Would he ever know? Part of him figured ignorance was bliss but he so needed to know what had happened in the years they had been separated. “I could never hate you. I’m going to help you become strong again. We’re going to survive. We can do this.”

But how could he manage? He was an Archangel without his power. If he was going to help heal his mate, he would need access to his grace, but the scars on his neck prevented that. Gabriel’s lips crashed against Sam’s in a moment of passion, but he pulled away too soon. Samael whimpered against Gabriel’s lips, his trembling hands digging into his shirt. He tried to kiss him harder, to press against him and never let go, but Gabriel pulled away and asked him about the sigils ringing his neck.

“Can you recognize the sigils on my neck?” he asked. “Do you think they could be easily broken?" 

Surprise flared through him, but he nodded, and lifted an unsteady hand to trace one of the sigils. “This one, it restricts the endurance of Grace.” He moved his fingers to the next, squinting his working eye. “This one is to contain Grace spellwork. This one invokes ill favor upon Grace. This one restricts the reach of Grace.”

He took a shaking breath, a pit of anxiety roiling in his stomach. _All_ the sigils were harmful to an angel’s Grace, and it pained him to see them written on Gabriel’s skin. He leaned forward unsteadily and kissed one, wishing he could will it away. “I am so sorry, Gabriel…”

His lips twitched into a frown as he pulled away. Each sigil looked unique, and did not match the ones which had been branded onto his own skin. It seems the humans truly had been experimenting in the beginning. Samael’s sigils had been more effective at containing him than Gabriel’s, it seemed. Thank goodness Gabriel was able to escape…

“Short of cleaving the flesh from your neck with an archangel blade—and Heaven knows if that would even work—I know not how they might be broken.” As soon as the words left his lips, he paled, sitting up ramrod straight. “No,” he hissed, shaking his head vehemently. “_Absolutely not_. You can’t be considering trying that… _Please_ tell me you know of another way!” Tears flowed anew, streaming down his face unimpeded. “I won’t lose you again, beloved, please… The pain would be so immense… What if it killed you? I would die…”

He had moved too quickly, too stiffly, and now had a storm of dizziness overwhelming him. As he wobbled unsteadily where he sat, he reached out to stabilize himself on Gabriel’s shoulders.

Gabriel sat as straight as his mate was, trying to make a point. 

“Do you have a better idea? I don’t see many other options! You need a fully functional Archangel to help you. Raphael’s dead, Michael’s broken, Lucifer’s the one that came up with this whole mess, and Uriel’s working with the humans! I’m the only one that can help you, and I can’t do it with these sigils!”

He kissed Sam passionately. He knew how crazy his idea sounded, but it was the only thing he could do if he wanted to help Sam. Letting him live like this wasn’t an option.

“I only need to survive through removing two of them. The one that invokes ill favor on grace, and the one that contains grace spellwork. Once those are gone, my body can heal itself again and I can get the other two off easily.”

He took Samael’s hands in his own, eyes locked on the other’s. “Sam, I need your help doing this. Please. I can’t stand the idea of living like this anymore. I can heal you and we can live quietly. We can isolate ourselves, away from the humans. We can go back to our lives. If that’s not worth risking my life for, I don’t know what is.”

Samael could not quiet his sobs, shaking his head and trembling. “Not for me,” he whimpered softly, clutching at Gabriel’s hands with all his strength. “Not for my sake, beloved, please… I _will_ heal eventually, I… Gabriel, I cannot even _see_ well, and I do not think I am currently possessed of the required dexterity.” He lifted a hand, fingertips brushing against one of the sigils. It sat just next to his carotid artery. “If I miss by so much as a millimeter, you’ll die…”

He lowered his forehead to rest on Gabriel’s shoulder, twining his arms around him. Even as he protested, he knew his mate had made up his mind—he’d always acted in such a manner, and while it brought a ghost of a smile to his lips, it also sent a shutter cascading throughout his body. Gabriel had always been both immovable object and irresistible force, wrapped together in one contradictory, beautiful angel. And Samael knew the other angel would not give up until he agreed.

“Let me rest first,” he murmured into the crook of his shoulder. “Please, at least wait until I have the use of both eyes, and when my hands do not tremble from pain. I am in no current shape to do something so delicate.” He bit his lower lip, fighting against a conditioned reaction of panic at declining to do as he was told. “I will not do it this very moment. I refuse.” His arms, weak from so many days spent working without rest, slid down Gabriel’s sides, coming to rest on his lap.

“Just let me rest first, please,” he begged, shivering against his mate. “Let my eye have the chance to reopen. Allow my limbs to regain some strength. Please… I'll do it then, I swear…” 

Gabriel kissed Sam’s forehead and nodded. “Let me get you to bed,” he said. “I’ll do what I can to heal you, and we can talk about it later.” He pressed a couple more kisses to Sam’s cheek before realizing the hurt angel was already asleep. He wondered how long it had been since he was allowed to sleep. If he was treated anything like Gabriel himself had been treated, he imagined it had been quite a long time.

He slid his arm behind Samael’s knees and around his shoulders, carrying him a little unsteadily up the stairs and to the bedroom. He cursed himself and his weakened state, but he didn’t stop until his mate was resting soundly in the bed. The only real comfort he had in his home, and only because he’d taken comfort for granted when he was locked away. 


	3. Dream Your Dream

Instead of going straight to sleep next to his beloved, he retrieved the first aid kit and got back to work trying to clean the small cuts on Sam’s back, gently checking the bandages that held the splint on his wings. He rubbed a little bit of ointment on Sam’s swollen eye and cleaned his feathers a little more. It truly broke his heart to see his mate in such a condition. How could they do this to Samael? The beautiful angel that had done no harm to anyone. Seeing him in this state tore Gabriel apart.

With one wing clean, he sat against the headboard and held Samael against his chest, humming a soft celestial tune from their days in Heaven. 

He glanced around at the bare walls and felt a chill of unease. Being in the white room had been torture. Pure torture. He could no longer stand plain walls. His mind could only go back to the room with nothing in it, and how his brain would try to fill in the blank spaces. 

Shuddering and on the verge of tears, he focused his attention on his mate. He wasn’t alone anymore. He would do what he could to nurse Samael back to health, and he was happy to do it. Just having him there in his arms made the years of torture worth it.

At one point in the night, Sam jolted in his sleep. Gabriel closed his arms around him and gently carded his fingers through his mate’s hair, softly singing to him. “Hush now, drift off to sleep, reality a memory. Don’t be scared of what you find. Yeah, it’s all just in your mind.”

Sam seemed to respond well to the singing, so Gabriel nuzzled close to him and continued. “Monsters that live inside your head at night, they are alright… ‘cause they can never compare to the ones that live outside.” His eyes flicked around the room, absolutely restless. He hummed a few bars and, satisfied that they were safe, turned his attention back to Sam. “Every mistake visible … so, was it me after all? A music box that creaks, the melody brings solemn peace, but only for one more breath. The last one you might have left. So, dream, dream, dream your dream, ‘cause when you’re awake, the nightmare awaits. So dream, dream, dream your dream ‘cause when you’re awake, a nightmare awaits. It’s a fantasy, they’ll be seein’ ya soon. Nowhere left to go, terrors keep breaking through. So, dream, dream, dream your dream ‘cause when you’re awake, the nightmare will become your truth.“

Gabriel wanted so desperately to protect Sam from everything in the outside world. As far as he was concerned, the only safety they had was the home they were in.

“The ticking clock breaks the spell with every beat….” He grit his teeth against the emotions he felt, particularly the weakness that he couldn’t save Sam from all of those horrors. “Illusion or not, you are safe for now… so dream your dream.”

He gently rocked Sam back and forth, not sure anymore if he was singing for Sam’s benefit or his own. “So, dream, dream, dream your dream, ‘cause when you’re awake, the nightmare awaits. So dream, dream, dream your dream ‘cause when you’re awake, a nightmare awaits. It’s a fantasy, they’ll be seein’ ya soon. Nowhere left to go, terrors keep breaking through. So, dream, dream, dream your dream ‘cause when you’re awake, the nightmare will become your truth.”

He remembered going through every day, hope dying slowly inside him. He began to lose faith that he would ever see his Sam again. Truthfully, it was the only reason he kept his archangel blade. He had become that sure that the rumor was only a rumor, that he was possibly only a few days from falling on his own blade. He was prepared to be just another casualty, because he couldn’t bear the thought of going that long without his beloved. 

But he would never let Sam know that. He could never let his mate know how broken he was. What if Samael decided he was too broken to be a worthy partner? What if he decided to leave? He buried the thoughts. He couldn’t think things like that. Not right now. Not when he could fix Sam.

He stayed awake all through the night. He hadn’t slept since they were separated, and he wasn’t comfortable falling asleep until he was certain he could protect Sam, should the worst happen. Needless to say, when Samael woke, Gabriel looked quite tired.


	4. Please Don't Leave Me

At one point, Samael dreamed of Gabriel—of resting slumped and boneless against his chest, his beloved humming an ancient song to him. He could almost feel the soft rumble of his voice in his chest, reverberating gently across the plane of his cheek. The song, in turn, led him to other dreams. He dreamed of the first time he’d kissed Gabriel, then the first time they’d made love. Samael had been so stupid, worrying endlessly that Gabriel did not want him, only to see him sheepishly offer him a feather when Samael went through his first heat. Ever since, he had refused to be separated from his mate. At least, until Heaven lost the war…

He dreamed of the last time he’d set eyes upon Gabriel, of the terrified angels divided into groups, their Grace constrained by a thousand angel-sealing sigils adorning the walls. He’d clung to Gabriel, had wrapped his long, strong arms around him to hold him close, but they’d come and dragged them apart. Oh, Samael had fought, and earned quite a beating for his efforts, but he had not let go of his beloved without fighting as fiercely as he could. And when he came to, they told him Gabriel had been executed, that he was ‘too much of a troublemaker’ for the others to take risks. As they dragged him away, he’d wept bitter tears of sorrow, utterly uncaring of what became of him without his beloved mate.

He had no time to even mourn before finding himself in chains and thrown into a frightening new reality. He remembered finding a way around the sigils they burned into his skin, only to realize a handful of his brothers and sisters were also trapped with him in the dark, miserable basement. As he could not just leave them, he freed them and followed them out, but it all happened far too late. He’d wasted too much time. He’d lagged behind to create a diversion, one which ended in his capture but allowed the others to flee with their lives.

Then Samael dreamed of chains, of restraints binding him in place as a glowing hot band of metal was fashioned against his neck. The agony of the melted archangel blade against his bare skin left him screaming and delirious and begging for mercy which was never granted. And when they threw him back in his cell, his neck throbbing with fresh, unhealed burns, he had fallen to his knees and prayed thanks to his Father that Gabriel had not lived to endure such agony.

But he _had_ endured agony, perhaps even worse than Samael, and his mind made up terrifying stories to fill his dream world. He dreamed of handlers beating Gabriel, of hammers and mallets crushing the bones of his vessel and wings. He dreamed of blades and fire, of his beloved screaming in agony and begging for death…

He awoke with a slight jerk and a sharp inhale of breath, eyes wet with the intensity of his nightmares. He took a deep, steadying breath and held it, the stretch of his too-full lungs oddly pleasant. He glanced around the strange room warily, but when he realized he was, in fact, slumped against Gabriel, he released the full, noisy breath. His windpipe protested the action, straining against the constricting collar, but Samael tried to push that particular annoyance from his mind. Otherwise, he felt moderately improved—his right eye could finally open, and his hands felt far steadier than before. He still felt as though he could sleep for weeks, but it was an improvement.

As his thundering heart began to slow, he met Gabriel’s beautiful eyes, flattening a hand against his chest. His mate appeared to be exhausted… had he not slept at all? Had he remained awake for Samael’s sake?

Burying his face against his neck, Samael drew air through his nostrils, intent on reminding himself of every detail of his mate. No feature could be ignored, from the curve of his lips to the smell of his skin. Every part of Gabriel was sacred and holy to Samael. He remained like that for a while, wordlessly listening to the thump of Gabriel’s heart underneath his ear.

About the time Gabriel had noticed that Sam was awake, he scrambled to sit up a little more against the pillows, wrapping his arms tightly around his mate. The embrace was enough to make Sam feel as though he could find safety in Gabriel’s arms. Like Gabe’s arms were a shield from the cruel world outside.

“How did you know I yet lived?” he murmured, not meeting Gabriel’s eyes. “You said it was a rumor?”

Somehow, his mate had found out Samael had survived, and had escaped to find him. If Samael had only known Gabriel had lived… but he hadn’t, and he’d instead lost himself to the humiliation and sorrow that followed. But what if he’d known? Could he have done anything differently? Samael did not know if he could ever forgive himself. If he’d escaped himself, instead of helping others who had never returned for him, perhaps he could have saved Gabriel so long ago…

“My captors left me chained to their rack instead of putting me back into the white room. I overheard them talking about the angels that were being moved to different parts of the world, and one of the descriptions they gave was of you. Or, your vessel, at least. I couldn’t hear if they’d said your name or not, but just the idea you were still alive meant I had to get out of there." 

He lifted his sleeves and showed where the cuffs had cut into his wrists. “It was the first time I’d struggled since they convinced me you were dead. It was also the last time I had use of my wings.”

He gulped and hid the scars again. “They had come to put me back in the white room. They took the cuffs off my ankles and I fought back. When got my hands free and I tried to fly away, they set my wings on fire with holy fire.”

Gabriel must not have realized how closely he was holding his beloved. As he was recounting the memories, Samael could see the desperation in his mate’s eyes. The desperation, not to survive, but to live to see the day he knew Samael was alive. 

"Even powerless, I still managed to escape. I relied on the little magic I learned from the pagans and decided to hide as Loki again. I had no idea where you were, but I never gave up on trying to find you. If there was a chance I could even catch a glimpse of you again, I had to keep looking.”

He offered a smile. A smile still haunted by the tortures he’d gone through. “But I found you, so I can say it was all worth it. All the pain, all the loneliness, everything.”

Samael listened, horror threading through every part of him as Gabriel recounted his tortures. He wept softly, trembling hands gathering one of Gabriel’s wrists. He pressed gentle kisses to the ring of scars left by the cruel, iron shackles, his tears dripping onto the pale flesh of Gabriel’s arm. His lips were rough and chapped, the bottom bearing the hint of a half-healed split, but despite the lack of softness he kissed his beloved’s skin anyway, and hoped he would not mind.

“They drenched your wings in holy oil,” he muttered, voice wavering, “and set them aflame…” He reached a hand around Gabriel’s back, flattening his palm against his shoulder blades where the wings would protrude if they were visible. Once full and huge and brilliant, a glorious spectrum of old gold and topaz, Samael’s mind supplied the too-vivid image of the charred, destroyed wings he’d seen the day before.

The simple touch tipped him headlong into despair, and he sobbed brokenly, hiding his face in Gabriel’s chest, clinging to him for dear life. How could they do this to his beautiful Gabriel? How could they _set him on fire_? How could they poke and prod and cut away at such a bright spirit, just to entertain themselves on all the ways he could not die?

They had done much to him, too. Samael knew well what it felt like to drown, to suffocate, to die of thirst and starvation a thousand times over. His body was spared no sensation from it, even if it would not die as he had longed for. He’d fought and struggled, only to have knives and hammers taken to his wings and body, crushing bones with no regard for how they would grow back. They had injected him with searing poison, just to see what it would do to him. They had carved pieces of him away, just to measure how slowly his organs would regrow. They chained his naked vessel to a metal post in subzero temperatures for days just to see if he would freeze to death.

Samael did not often like to think about how far he’d gone to stop the pain sometimes. 

“Why? What did we do that our Father decreed such terrible judgment upon us all?” he whimpered, clinging to Gabriel. “How can any living creature desire to set another _on fire_?” With his limited strength, he pulled at Gabriel’s shoulders, at his torso, doing anything he could to pull the other closer. “Beloved, I am so sorry… I had long given up, but I could have escaped, and I didn’t. This is my doing. I left you to that torture. I abandoned you to their mercy.”

The knowledge that Gabriel had fought that day for Samael’s sake only lanced the agony through his chest like a blade, icy and unforgiving. His wings could have been saved—he’d escaped without their aid, hadn’t he? He had struggled and fought to reach Samael, and….

“No, I’ m not worth it,” he disagreed, shaking his head. “If you knew the things I submitted to, Gabriel, the too many ways that they broke me, the ways in which I am besmirched… When I tell you everything, you will send me away, I know it.”

He clutched at his shirt, terrified of his rejection. “I would die a thousand times over to spare you this pain. I am so sorry…”

Gabriel clung to his mate, shaking his head. “Don’t do that,” he half-whined. “Don’t you for a second think you’re not worth fighting for. I would have turned the Earth upside down to find you, if I could. You’re the only thing I have left.” 

And there it was. The briefest glimpse into how terrified Gabriel was of losing Samael again. He was half in tears, half pleading. He couldn’t lose his beloved again.

He hid his face in his mate’s hair, sobbing quietly. “If Michael couldn’t escape, I see no reason why you could have,” he tried to reason. “Michael’s always been the strongest, but he broke, same as you and me. You thought I was dead. You behaved the same way I did. Please don’t try to convince me you weren’t worth it. You’re the only thing I’ve ever had that’s worth fighting for.” He gingerly held his mate in his arms. “Father has abandoned us, our brothers are dying, and I have nothing left. You’re all I have. You’re the only reason I’m still breathing. _Please don’t leave me._”

At Gabriel’s quiet sobs, Samael realized they were both clinging to one another with equal fervor, desperate for comfort and love. He shifted in his mate’s arms, pressing his face into the juncture of his neck and shoulder.

“Never,” he murmured against Gabriel’s neck. “I love you. I could never leave you.” His own tears grew still as he laid in his arms, listening to the soft puffs of breath escaping his beloved’s lips. “Please do not leave _me_. I would not survive it. To have you near once more, just to lose you again… I could not bear it.”

He pulled away to kiss Gabriel, soft and chaste upon the lips. His hands, now steady and sure, cupped his face as he kissed each cheek, each eyelid, and even the tip of his nose before placing another kiss to his lips. He slid his arms around Gabriel’s neck, his cheek flush against Gabriel’s as he embraced him. He could not stop himself from a soft peck of lips against his mate’s ear before lowering his forehead back to his shoulder.

He sighed, exhausted even after sleeping, tired in ways angels were never built to withstand. The heat of his mate’s skin had a soothing, drowsy effect, threatening to pull him back down into slumber. But Samael blinked it away, for no dream could ever exceed the comfort he felt at the presence of his mate.

“I believe we are both quite broken,” he admitted softly, arms tightening around Gabriel. “And neither of us knows precisely how to put the jagged pieces together again. And perhaps we both fear the same rejection—namely, that the other will recoil as we each learn the trials and humiliations suffered by the other.” He paused a beat. “But nothing could drive me from you, beloved, and… I must choose to believe nothing could drive you from me, either.” He shivered, a hint of nervousness winding through his limbs. At least, he hoped nothing could drive Gabriel from him…


	5. Broken

Sam allowed his eyes to drift shut, the intoxicating warmth of the archangel seeping through his skin and down to his bones. “All I know is that with you by my side, I shall find a way to recover. Even though it may be lengthy and painful, so long as you are with me I can withstand it.” He dropped another kiss on his neck, and sighed, his breath spreading across the plane of Gabriel’s neck. “I hope you will allow me the honor to do the same for you, beloved. We are _both_ in need of warmth and love.”

He whispered “I love you,” between each kiss to his neck and shoulder, and with every touch Samael wanted nothing more than to stay in that moment forever. He wanted to touch and kiss and worship Gabriel, to remind his beloved just how deeply his affection ran. He knew Gabriel well enough to know how anguished he must feel, from the soft sobs against his hair to the tightness of his embrace. Samael could not do much, still weak and nearly half-blind as he was, but his voice could still give up adulations, his hands could caress Gabriel’s damaged vessel, and his lips could kiss and soothe timeworn scars of the mind. And if Gabriel’s plan went well, soon he would be able to soothe his beloved with his own Grace. 

His swollen eye throbbed and his broken wings stung with every slight movement. His entire body ached from years of unrelenting abuse and exhaustion, while the collar encircling his neck dug sharply into his throat. But the only thing which mattered to Samael in that moment was soothing his beloved Gabriel’s anguish.

It had been far too long since Gabriel had been exposed to any kind of affection. Hearing these words of love now brought further tears to his eyes. He buried his face into his mate’s shoulder and pressed desperate kisses to his skin.

“Nothing will ever make me leave you,” he whimpered, still terrified that he was too broken to be of any use to his beloved Samael. “I love you, Samshine. Nothing’s ever going to change that." 

“And I love you, Gabriel,” he murmured, voice muffled against his mate’s chest. When he began to tremble and shake, burying his face against Samael’s neck, he reached up and stroked his hair, soft and gentle.

He started to relax a little bit with the feeling his mate’s hands on his body. He slowly started to unwind, to believe that, perhaps, this wasn’t a cruel dream. That his mate was truly there, and that this was not just a byproduct of the torture he’d endured. The second he started questioning it, however, is when he tensed up and started shaking. He inhaled Samael’s scent. Buried under blood, sweat, tears, and grime, there was still that underlying scent of home. The smell of a forest during rainfall. Not even his mind could fake that smell.

He buried his face into the crook of his mate’s neck, drinking in that scent. This was real. He had to keep telling himself that. This was real, and he had been reunited with his beloved. Getting his wings burned off in his escape was more than worth it, because it meant he was really here with his mate.

His hands absently started petting Samael’s wings, and finally he was home. They had more trauma between them than a veteran’s hospital, but they were home. They could heal together. They could try to be normal again.

“I do not know what you have been through,” he said, voice dry, “but please, I wish you would share your pain with me so that I may help heal you of it. I would do _anything_ for you, beloved.”

At the touch of Gabriel’s hands on his wings, a stuttered gasp left his throat. Samael had not known a kind touch in so long, but now his wings were so broken that the sensation skittering from base to wingtip felt like a thousand tiny electric stings. What was once the most sacred and pleasurable touch he could share with his mate had become exceedingly painful in the face of his injuries.

“St-stop!” he gasped, his back jerking away from the touch without his consent. “Please, it… they’re too damaged.” An explanation about how much it hurt sat on the tip of his tongue, but he swallowed the words down before setting them loose. Gabriel didn’t need anything else to feel bad about. “Just wait until they’re healed?”

With the sudden movement came an awful, throbbing pain deep within his torso, stabbing so fiercely he cringed, momentarily breathless. Only a monumental effort to contain his reaction kept his voice still. Sore muscles often hurt more than freshly damaged ones, or so he’d heard…

Stuffing down the pain, he took a deep, steadying breath, and resettled himself against Gabriel, clinging to his mate’s warmth as though it were the air he needed to breathe. Samael never had the opportunity to feel warm anymore…

He had spent so much time in the pitch darkness of a basement cell, where the coarse, stone floor stayed frigid and wet. He’d been chained in that damp cell with every strip of dignity torn from him, naked and shaved and beaten raw, the feathers plucked from his wings and the muscles bruised and torn through with iron stakes to hold them. In the pitch black he had only the frozen floor beneath him and the occasional drop of water in the distance to remind him a world outside still existed—but his legs often went numb and his ears rang such that he could sense absolutely nothing at all. He even became accustomed to his ever-present thirst and hunger. He didn’t know how long he spent there, only that the monotony was broken only when the humans came to torture him.

But he was here now, with Gabriel, where he could be warm and loved—and where he could give love in return. He turned his head to press a kiss against Gabriel’s cheek, petting his hair gently. 

Gabriel immediately stopped touching Samael’s wings when his mate recoiled. He didn’t so much as twitch a muscle until Samael laid against him again. He whispered an apology and smoothed his beloved’s hair.

“I don’t know if I can be healed,” Gabriel said. “Physically, I will be fine when I have access to my grace again, but …” He trailed off, hesitant to say anything. He took a deep breath, deciding he had to tell his mate.

“When the humans weren’t torturing me, they would lock me in a room. It was completely white. There was no color, the light was blinding, no sound at all… So my mind started to fill in the blanks. It would be horrifying for hours, and then I would imagine you. About the time I began to think you were real, the humans would come and drag me out for more experiments.”

A voice in the back of Gabriel’s head hinted at him that this was just another hallucination. That he never left that room, and he was terrified it was right. He kept clinging to Samael, trying to remind himself that this was real. This wasn’t another hallucination. Lord knows how many times he’d hallucinated his mate embracing him like this, only for his torturers to snap him back to the harsh reality. 

He clung a little tighter to his mate, terrified that his words would make Samael reject him. He began to tremble in fear, no matter how hard he tried to steady himself. God, he must look so pathetic. Who would want him as a mate?

Still, he went on.

“It got so bad, I would beg for them to torture me, but any time I spoke, they made me sit in there longer. Even after I got out, I see things and hear things. I don’t know if that’s ever going to go away. It gets worse when I’m in an empty room.”

The pain in his side let him nearly breathless, but Samael ignored it, pushing it as far away as possible. Gabriel had rescued Samael, and now his mate needed _him_.

“Then I shall always stay with you, so we may ensure you are never in an empty room,” he said, pulling back just enough to meet his mate’s eyes. “And if I stay with you always, then there should be no doubt whether I am real or not, yes?” He brought his hands up to cup Gabriel’s face, and leaned in to kiss his forehead. He exhaled against his skin, and moved to kiss each eyelid, his thumbs rubbing soothing circles against his temples.

Despite the pain cascading through his body, Samael wrapped his arms around Gabriel, moving to hold his mate in his arms. His limbs and spine and muscles all complained, but the pain was only physical, and bearable. Besides, he would bear pain ten thousand times worse for Gabriel’s sake.

“And yet, despite such anguish, you escaped,” he breathed, holding Gabriel tighter. “You have always been so clever, so resourceful.” He smiled against his cheek, and pressed soft kisses along the line of his jaw. “My clever, beautiful Gabriel.” His tone was reverent, worshipful. “I am blessed beyond all reckoning to call myself your mate, to have _ever_ earned your love, much less to keep it even now when I am bloodied and no longer appealing.” He kissed his lips, then the tip of his nose before drawing him close again.

“And even with all your pain, you broke free and managed to find me. You rescued me, Gabriel. I had long wished for death, and then you plucked me from my agony.” He dropped a kiss to his neck. “Beloved, how did you even find me? To look for one grain of sand among countless others… It seems so impossible.” He kissed him again, his hands rubbing soothing circles on his back. 

One hand threaded in his mate’s golden hair, fingertips gently dragging across the scalp. “Tell me what you need, beloved,” he murmured against his cheek. “Gabriel, I would do anything for you. I love you. Whatever you need, should I be able to grant it, it is yours.”

Samael held the trembling angel in his arm, honestly at a loss for how to comfort him. Likely, there existed no easy answer at all. But he would whisper into his ear and touch him and tell him he was loved until the end of time, if it took that. He would do it gladly.

Gabriel shivered under his mate’s fingers, mind trying to bring light to the horrors he’d tried to bury. This was his beloved Samael. This wasn’t one of his human captors. He didn’t have to worry about … rough treatment.

He leaned cautiously into Samael’s touch, choosing to listen to his words. He needed the reminder that he was loved. Both of them did. That, through everything, their pain had paid off. That Samael was here, and that Gabriel was still loved. 

“I prayed,” he said at last. “I prayed that if our Father had any ounce of sympathy left in Him, that He would lead me to you, and that we would be reunited so we could live out our days away from this cruelty." 

He looked into his mate’s eyes, tearing up from the weight of all he’d been through. “I would be compelled to settle in one area, and I wouldn’t find anything. Then I would be compelled to move to another area, and still nothing. I was about to give up when I found you. If I had not walked by the auction at just the right moment, I would have given up entirely. I hit my limit. I’d been looking for years, Sam. I could not let myself keep chasing a dream that wouldn’t come true. I know how despicable that sounds, but I just … couldn’t keep chasing a ghost.”

Samael lifted his hand to stroke Gabriel’s cheek, his fingers threading through golden hair. “My love, I wouldn’t have wanted you to look forever. To imagine you enduring such agony for my sake….” He shut his eyes, his throat thickening. “I could not bear it. I would rather you never remember me at all than suffer at my loss.” Pressing a kiss to his lips, he sighed. “We have both suffered so much…”

He pressed his forehead to Gabriel’s, his swollen eye smarting. He squeezed his shoulders, allowing Gabriel’s hands to slide along the plane of his back. Samael remained content to simply share air with his mate, to breathe in the air he breathed out. He sensed more might be afoot here, that Gabriel might still fear his rejection. His heart began to speed up as he considered admitting his own suffering. Might admitting his own fears help Gabriel understand Samael’s devotion?

It was Gabriel. Surely, he would not reject him…? And yet, the fear coursed through his limbs anyway, leaving him trembling. 

“I told you before that you would turn away from me if you knew everything. That I am… besmirched,” he murmured, eyes shut. He could not bear to look him in the eye while he aired his misery. “My great fear is that you will send me away once I tell you….”

Slowly, he drew away, grasping Gabriel’s hand tightly in his own. He feared clinging to his beloved for comfort while he spoke, lest the signs of Gabriel’s rejection become painfully obvious. His eyes still firmly shut, Samael continued.

“The second human who owned me beat me nearly without rest. He shackled me to a stone wall in a pitch black, wet, frigid basement, and broke nearly every bone in my body, all in an attempt to law me low underneath his will. I would not submit, for I was still attempting to find a way around this collar, which was still new at the time. I desperately wished to escape, I…”

His voice died in his throat, and a choked sob emerged, his head drooping. “When physical intimidation did not work, he resorted to… other methods.” He paused, refusing to open his eyes, wetting his lips before continuing. “First he stroked my wings, knowing how sacred the rite was to angels… but it only served to make me even more livid. Upon realizing _that_ wouldn’t work, he… he forced himself upon me, which was admittedly very awful, but it only served to make me _more_ defiant. Then he…” His voice trembled, and he turned away from Gabriel completely, dropping his hand. “Then he made me _enjoy_ it… and I finally crumbled.”

It took a long moment before Samael’s heaving breath quieted enough for him to continue. “He would touch me, force my body towards an orgasm I did not want. Then when I would be close, he would stop, but would continue just enough to keep my vessel aroused, but never allowing it to end. He would continue the treatment for hours and hours, for weeks on end, and in the pitch darkness of my cell, shackled and unable to help myself, the effectiveness of his torture became even worse. It took a long time, but… eventually, I _begged_ for it, Gabriel. It was not pleasure, but torture, but if I begged, he would end it. If I remained proud and silent, he would prolong it for _weeks_. But if I begged, if I admitted to wanting it, he would finish it, and leave me in the quiet with my shame.” He paused, drawing in a shaking breath. “This went on for over a year. I…”

Tears streamed from Samael’s eyes, and he brought up his hands to cover his face, refusing to open his eyes and see what he knew must be Gabriel’s disgusted reaction. “Do you see, beloved? You rescued a broken, soiled angel. I became no better than a whore begging for release from anyone who might provide it. I can never change what I submitted to…. You deserve so much more than me in a mate, Gabriel… I am unworthy of you in every way, now.”

He could not look upon him, trembling and weeping as he was. He craved Gabriel’s arms around him, comforting him; desperately needed to hear whispered words of love and encouragement, but feared he might never know such comfort again. Gabriel now knew how low he’d fallen, how far he’d been willing to go to make it all end.

“Please,” Samael whimpered, face still hidden in his hands, his panic beginning to overwhelm him, “do not send me away. When you reject me as a mate for this, I understand and I shall not blame you, but do not turn me loose upon the streets. I will do anything, Gabriel. I will be your servant, _anything_… Just do not send me away. I… I love you. I _need_ you. I…”

Trembling and sobbing, he crumpled in on himself.


	6. Count On Me

Gabriel listened to Samael’s words, and could almost feel his heart shattering into a thousand pieces. He would have happily lived with bottling the memories of being raped until the day time stopped, but hearing that it had happened to his beloved mate? That changed everything.

He’d had the limits of his body tested in every way. He’d been a pin cushion of different weapons. He’d been put through every torture in recorded history, just to see how long he could last before screaming for mercy. He’d been sawed in half from groin to chin. He’d had limbs drenched in liquid nitrogen and shattered to see if they would grow back. He’d been drawn and quartered, thrown to wild animals, frozen in a block of ice, tossed into a small box for months until the humans were sure he could no longer move… and yet losing Samael was still the worst torture he could endure. 

He’d learned quickly what the white room did. Within 15 minutes, his mind had begun to make up for the lack of stimulation. Everything was white. The bed, the toilet, he was served white rice on a white plate, forced to wear white from head to toe. It was impossible to tell what was where, so his mind did its best to fill in the visual and auditory stimulation. Not even angels were immune to that kind of psychological torture. It got to the point where he looked forward to the human’s experiments, because at least that pain was real.

A voice in the back of Gabriel’s head hinted at him that this was just another hallucination. That he never left that room, and he was terrified it was right. He kept clinging to Samael, trying to remind himself that this was real. This wasn’t another hallucination. Lord knows how many times he’d hallucinated his mate embracing him like this, only for his torturers to snap him back to the harsh reality. 

He’d experienced things he dared not mention to Sam. He would tell what experiments had been performed on him, how many times he’d almost been snuffed out, only to be “revitalized” by the white room, what he’d hallucinated and how the humans had laughed at him … But he could not tell everything. At least, he didn’t want to.

He moved closer to Sam again, wrapping his arms around the other angel. He lifted his mate’s chin, his own golden orbs showing nothing but complete devotion. His lips pressed reverently against his mate’s, trying to bring him some small amount of comfort.

“It would hardly be fair of me to reject you as my mate,” he said, trying to keep his voice level, “because I have gone through the same Hell. I am every bit as besmirched as you are. The only difference being, I …… I did not fight for as long as you did." 

He ran his hands through Samael’s hair affectionately, as he used to do to calm his mate. 

"Understand, they had been trying to figure out how to get the angels to reveal their wings. They had tried everything, but I was too proud to give them the satisfaction. When they told me you were gone, that you had died, I lost my reason to fight. The next time they opened that door, I presented my wings to them, and …" 

His voice cracked, raw from the all-too-fresh memories. 

"They took me. It was their way of reminding me that I was little more than an experiment. A slave. They were never kind, and always left me bloody … and I let them. I let them, because it was either that, or they would torture my wings. Sometimes they would do both.”

There was more, but he couldn’t bring himself to say anything about it. He’d painted the picture well enough.

“I will not refuse you as a mate, if you will do the same for me. I believe there is a chance for us to heal from these horrors, as long as we stick together." 

He lifted Samael’s chin, meeting his mate’s eyes. "Let’s make a pact, right here and now. That while the other is breathing, we will never let ourselves become victims to the humans again. When we’re both in better condition, I have one more safe haven we can retreat to, where there are no dank cellars or blank walls. We can make our own Heaven, away from the humans.”

Samael crumbled into his arms, sobbing against his chest. His wings had been set aflame, he’d been tortured in all the most awful ways imaginable, and they’d raped him, as if all the other misery were not enough. Had his beloved mate been spared a single indignity?

“Gabriel,” he choked, voice a raspy whisper, “Oh, beloved….” His hands tangled in his shirt, pulling him as close as possible. “I am so sorry. You did not deserve it. You… Oh, _Gabriel_…”

But a gentle hand touched his chin, tilting it upwards. At the loyalty in Gabriel’s eyes and the soft press of lips against his own, and the soothing drag of his hands through his hair, Samael whimpered. Trembling, he grasped Gabriel’s shoulder for balance. He wasn’t being rejected, but accepted.

“I love you,” he breathed, shutting his eyes. “I _need_ you, beloved. I could never abandon you.” His hands found the angel’s, and he squeezed. “Living without you was more than I could bear, and now that I have laid eyes upon you once more, I could never survive it again.”

He leaned forward, his lips brushing softly against Gabriel’s. He pushed every ounce of tenderness and veneration he had into the gentle motion, even with tears still streaking his face. “My beautiful, bright Gabriel.” His hands caressed his face, thumbs dragging lightly across his cheekbones.

“That—it sounds wonderful,” he said, voice quavering through his tears. “A pact it is, then.”

Samael leaned against him once more, burying his face into the crook of his neck, soaking in his warmth and affection. They were still mates. They loved one another, even after all those awful years apart. And by some act of mercy or providence or random chance, they had found one another again. His heaving breaths and broken sobs began to quiet as he made himself focus on the motions of Gabriel’s hands, soothing and gentle against his scalp and through his long hair.

“You remembered,” he breathed, voice raw but much calmer. “Even after everything, you’ve never forgotten how to comfort me.” He squeezed his arms tighter, resting his cheek upon his shoulder, the barest hint of a smile warming his lips. His eyes softened, and his nerves were finally silenced. He knew he would not lose Gabriel again. 

He wanted to return the gesture of comfort, but as his hand flattened against Gabriel’s back, he hesitated. What if it caused him pain, just as Samael’s own wings could hardly stand touch? He settled for threading his fingers in Gabriel’s golden hair with one hand, and squeezing his hand with the other. 

Gabriel hesitated as he felt Samael’s hand against his back. He took a deep, shuddering breath, but he couldn’t keep hiding his wings. Bare and skeletal as they were, they were a part of him. With Sam around, he was sure he could heal in due time. 

He extended his wings and let them hang near his mate. He curled into Samael a little closer and pressed lazy kisses to his forehead. “I’d never forget a thing about you,” he said. “In all these years, I’ve dreamt of every detail of you.” Not really dreaming, having been terrified to sleep, but he spent all of the hallucinations of Samael finding some solace in his arms.

His hands wandered each curve of every muscle he could never dream of forgetting. Instinctively, he reached his grace out to try to heal some of the superficial wounds, but the sigils gave his grace a shock each time he tried. He needed these damn seals off. He wanted to be able to take care of his mate like he promised to.

For now, though, he pressed a loving, tender kiss to Samael’s lips, pulling him closer. He craved an affectionate touch. He needed it more than he needed anything else. 

Gabriel’s gentle hands roamed his body, and Samael gave into his kiss. His own wings ached and his side protested the movement as he leaned forward. Every topic felt painful to discuss; every answer brought a new tragedy to light. He needed to feel and touch and know he was loved, just as Gabriel needed to be reminded of the same. 


	7. Touch Me

“Do they hurt?” Samael asked, voice unsteady. He gestured with a nod of his head toward Gabriel’s wings, clearly more concerned about then than he was of his own wings. “Even now, all this time later? How long did they burn…?” The words left his mouth nearly against his will, even as he braced himself for the undoubtedly terrible answer.

Gabriel’s wings stung, but they pressed into Sam’s every touch. It was painful, but it was the most tender touch they’d known in far too many years. He would endure the pain if it meant knowing his mate was that close to him.

The question gave him some pause, but he was willing to answer. He glanced at the remains of his wings before speaking. “They were set aflame when I was trying to escape,” he said. “There was some initial pain, but I was so focused on getting out of there and returning to you, I barely felt a thing. I used them to fight my way out.”

Samael’s mind conjured an image of Gabriel fighting his way free, his wings ablaze as he fought his captors. He could well imagine the grim set of his lips, the furrow of his brow, the gleam of determination in his eyes.

He must have appeared terrifying to any humans who saw him. Truly, the image of an avenging archangel.

Gabriel stretched the appendages, barely showing any reaction to them. “I flew out of there and put them out as soon as I was far enough away….. Maybe a few days.”

And yet, his wings pressed into every touch. What was left of them, anyway. Gabriel wanted to kiss his mate’s wings, to remind them that there were affectionate touches left for them. He gingerly pulled Samael closer, pressing tender, loving kisses to any inch of skin that didn’t appear bruised or otherwise injured. 

He could easily spend hours or days stewing about all the pain he’d endured, but one simple fact remained. He endured it all with the hope he’d see his mate again, and he’d endure it all again if it meant Samael would be safe for the rest of his days. But none of that mattered. Not when they were there in each other’s arms. 

As Gabriel pulled him closer, he sighed without intending to, the feel of his soft lips on his skin absolutely divine. He sat up—winced at the pain shooting through his torso before promptly ignoring it—and leaned over to press a kiss to a charred wing joint, careful to not touch _too_ much. It could not feel so pleasant, no matter how much he wished to touch. “How did I ever become so fortunate as to earn your love?” he murmured, dropping another soft peck to the damaged limb. 

A shiver wound through his own wings, ripping from wingtip to wingtip and out and down through his spine, at the thought of Gabriel’s hands. Long ago, they would lie together under the warm sunshine and groom one another’s wings, each leaving the other a panting, trembling mess. It had always been such a marvelous game, to see who would crumble first, who would grab the other and pin them to the soft grass first. And then they would make love, and glow in their shared joy. It was a game which was fun to win, but perhaps even more fun to lose. 

Now, with the bones of Samael’s wings broken and with so many bad memories of handlers plucking his feathers, of handling and stroking his wings without his consent, the thought of _anyone_ touching them left him feeling slightly ill. And yet, he still craved the soothing calm Gabriel’s hands had once brought.

He longed for the simplicity and peace they’d once known together

Samael closed his hands around Gabriel’s wrists, maneuvering his hands so that they pressed into his feathers. “Gabriel, I want— Would you…?” he began, but his voice died in his throat. “Be gentle?” he offered, feeling a pang of shame at his own weakness. “I know they are not as damaged as yours, but…”

The nerves in Gabriel’s wings were dulled, but he still felt that familiar shiver run from wingtip to wingtip and down his spine just as it had been before they had been separated. Before he knew it, his hands were touching his mate’s feathers.

He looked startled. Almost taken aback. With as injured as Sam was, he was still trying to please him? Barely a second later, he recalled the afternoons in the sunshine, and he understood.

He smiled and nodded, blinking back the tears in his eyes. “I’ll be gentle,” he said. “Yours bring you more pain than mine.”

He leaned forward and placed the lightest of kisses to the other’s wing, fingers gently combing through the stray feathers. The touches were barely there, but he did test for limits. At any sign of pain, he would back off and attempt to pet somewhere else. He didn’t mind the extra caution.

He almost hated that he could not provide the same for Samael. 

He froze against his will as Gabriel began carding his hand through his feathers, his lips lingering over bits of exposed flesh. His mate seemed to take great care as he danced between the material of the makeshift splint, careful not to disrupt it or move it. As his gentle motions continued, Samael felt himself relax into the touch, the long, powerful muscles of his back going slack under the pleasant attention. He couldn’t stop himself from leaning his head against Gabriel’s shoulder, drinking in his warmth.

“Feels good,” he slurred, feeling drunk on the attention. “Forgot how good it could feel.” And it _did_ feel good—impossibly, inconceivably good. Gabriel touched him out of admiration; out of boundless love. It made all the difference to his tattered, weary spirit.

The fluttering, electric warmth beneath Gabriel’s fingertips traveled down his spine, and began to pool low in his belly. He had not quite expected arousal, not given what they had both been through, but… they loved one another, and why should they not celebrate that love? His mate’s touch to his wings made it clear that such private, physical things, while they could certainly be used to cause harm, could also feel soothing and wonderful.

Samael lifted his head, his lips kissing a trail up the side of his neck. He lingered over the sigils on his neck, blinking back tears as he knew he could not will them away from his beautiful mate. Pressing a kiss to one, he moved until he hovered just over Gabriel’s ear.

“I love you,” he murmured, his hands sliding up and down Gabriel’s side. He paused, biting his lower lip before tugging gently at his mate’s shirt. He did not have nearly the range of motion required to remove it, but he could at least make his wish known. He wanted to feel his mate’s skin, warm and solid against his own. 

Samael shifted—again ignoring a stab of pain—and kissed him on the lips, slow and far less chaste than before. He drew Gabriel’s lower lip between his teeth, teasing it with his tongue—then pressed it inside, licking and tasting his beloved’s mouth. He tasted like devotion, like sunshine, like _home_. Yes, it had been far too long. Samael wanted more.

Perhaps Gabriel would not want to, and Samael could hardly fault him for that. Samael didn’t even know how he would physically manage it, as limited as his movements were, and as much pain as he felt. So he kept his kiss gentle, if deep, letting it hang between them like a question. It need not be more than a kiss. 

Gabriel whined needily, caught between wanting to continue showering Sam’s wings with love and attention, and wanting to disrobe them both. If he had access to his magic, he’d have been able to accomplish both. However, now he had to worry about moving in such a way that didn’t hurt his mate.

He returned the kiss lovingly, pulling his shirt off. He vaguely remembered how littered his body was with scars, and there was a moment’s panic in which he wondered if Sam would find him ugly. He pushed that thought aside and ran a gentle hand up his mate’s chest. Fingers traced each little scar, lips pressing tender kisses to each wound not yet healed.

His tongue battled Samael’s playfully, feeling his face flush as he realized how much he needed this. He pulled from the kiss and pushed some of his mate’s hair out of his eyes. He was clearly dazed and aroused, but they both needed this. They needed each other’s tender embrace.

“What would be most comfortable for you?” he asked. “You must be in pain. I don’t want to make it worse.” That wasn’t to say he didn’t want every inch of him in every way right here. It was Samael’s wings he was most concerned about.

At the touch of Gabriel’s gentle lips and careful fingers caressing his marred skin, Samael’s head lolled back, a soft moan tearing loose from his throat. He nearly lost himself in the feel of the soft scrape of his mate’s stubble against bruised muscles, and the wet press of his mouth against cuts and gashes barely healed.

Samael glanced back at his wings, the slight curve of a frown on his lips. “I cannot take any weight on my back,” he commented. “I am afraid, in fact, I cannot easily bear any weight at all.” He paused a beat. “Despite how much I once enjoyed the feel of you on top of me….”

He turned his head back to Gabriel, drinking in the vision of his honey-gold eyes. He leaned forward to kiss him, maneuvering his legs underneath him until he sat upon his knees. Samael’s eyes drifted to Gabriel’s torso, his fingertips trailing over the edges of old scars, each a mark of a past misery. He could only easily reach a few, and he dropped kisses upon each one.

“Perhaps I… if I were sitting upright….” Gripping Gabriel’s arms, he sidled closer, moving to straddle his lap—only to have a sharp wince of pain as he stretched in a manner he should not have. He huffed in frustration, resting his forehead against Gabriel’s.

“Perhaps this is impractical,” he said, his voice holding a breathless edge. His side ached terribly, and the movement had left him out of breath and trembling, but he had succeeded in maneuvering himself astride his lap. Samael shivered at the press of Gabriel’s solid warmth between his legs, and could not keep himself from rocking against him. 

He dropped his lips to Gabriel’s, kissing him deeply as he rolled his hips against him again. He wrapped one hand around his wrist, and brought it between them, pinning it between their stomachs. Samael rather wished he had taken more care to get rid of his pants, now…

“Touch me,” he asked, his voice coming out as a broken whine. “Please, Gabriel…”

Gabriel moaned softly, rocking his hips up into those of his mate’s. His mind wanted to stop this, to tell Samael to wait until he was healed, but his body was past the point of control. 

“Impractical as it may be, I think we’ve reached a point where we both need it,” he said. “If anything hurts too much, let me know. I’ll adjust." 

He cupped his hand against the back of Samael’s neck and brought him in for a passionate kiss. He whispered a touch of pagan magic that, thankfully, he could still use, and they were soon bared to each other. He didn’t want to make his mate move any more than he had to. 

His hand worked to gently stroke his beloved’s length, lips capturing those of his mate’s once more. His hips rutted against the other, his free hand reaching behind Samael to slip a couple of fingers into his hole to stretch him. 

At the first touch of Gabriel’s hand around his hard length, he whimpered, pressing his face into the crook of his mate’s neck. With only a few strokes, he began to drown in memory—from the amazing, talented feel of his hands to the slide of their wet tongues, he remembered it all. His hand had a few more calluses than before, but it made for unbearably good friction against his cock.

But when Gabriel began to rock against him, his bare length sliding alongside his own, Samael was lost. He squirmed, rutting into his hand and trying to press back against him. It had been so long since he’d wanted this, but he couldn’t imagine wanting things any different with Gabriel. He needed this, needed _him_.

“Need you,” he whimpered, voice gone to pieces. “Love you so much, Gabriel.” 

He tried to grasp his mate’s hard, messy length; wanted to return the gesture, but at the intrusion of his fingers, Samael cried out, throwing his head back with a broken moan. He had to give up on coordination altogether, as his entire world had narrowed down to the tongue in his mouth, the hand on his cock, and the fingers stroking against his prostate. It burned as he stretched him, but it was _so_ good—he had forgotten it could feel so amazing. He began to move in earnest, fucking himself down on Gabriel’s fingers and then grinding his length forward into the tight ring of his fingers, and beginning all over again. The movement _hurt_, the muscles in his sides screaming at his incessant motion, but he couldn’t stop.

All at once, he realized how close he was to his release, and blindly grasped for Gabriel’s hand on his cock, stilling it’s movements. But the press of his fingers inside made him arch his back, a cry of rapture spilling from his lips, and he had to squeeze the base of his length firmly to keep from loosing himself right then and there. It was a close thing, but he managed to stave it off for the moment.

He was red-faced and panting, and he gave Gabriel a bright, if slightly dazed, smile. “I need a moment,” he rasped, a bubble of honest-to-goodness _laughter_ rumbling in his chest. How long had it been since Samael had felt such joy and mirth? “Your hands, oh Gabriel… I almost came on your fingers alone, beloved.”

Gabriel had to take a moment to realize what was going on, but looking up and seeing that smile on Samael’s face, hearing his laughter… it pulled a chuckle from his throat.

“Perhaps when you’re feeling better, I’ll let you return the favor,” he teased. He kissed his mate again, moving his hands to gingerly rest on the other’s lower back. He couldn’t help but want to touch the other angel. Even bruised, scarred, and lacerated as he was, he was still the most beautiful creature Gabriel could have ever hoped would love him in return.

His own arousal, on the other hand, kept reminding him just how much he needed this to continue. After a few moments, Gabriel used what strength he had to coerce Sam’s hips to lift. He placed himself and brought his mate down onto him, back arching slightly in delight. 

He rocked his hips up, trying to encourage Samael to remain still. He didn’t want to cause any pain. From where he was underneath his mate, he rutted up needily, hands kneading at the muscles in the other’s thighs.

Samael brought one hand down on the bed to steady himself, the other petting the marred skin of Gabriel’s stomach. He tried to move, to lift himself up and sink back down on his mate’s cock the way he longed to, but his legs refused to cooperate. A wince of pain halted any further attempts, but he quickly shoved the pain away. He did not want Gabriel to see his frailty, his weakness, or he might stop… and Samael certainly didn’t want that.

But still, Samael wanted—no, _needed—_more, and began to rock back in time against Gabriel’s thrusts, drawing him deeper with every roll of their hips. His mate’s name began to spill from his lips, over and over, quiet and reverent like a prayer. Samael wasn’t entirely certain it wasn’t a prayer.

At first, the pleasure he felt as he rocked back against Gabriel outweighed the pain racing up and down his sides. But soon the balance began to tip in the other direction, causing more pain than anything, and Samael had to stop. Gabriel’s hands seemed to be encouraging him to remain still, and as much as he wanted more, he would simply have to take whatever Gabriel could give him. A soft whine of frustration spilled from his lips, his hands threading around Gabriel’s, holding tight as his mate thrust into him.

He stared down at the archangel, taking in the beautiful sight of him. He watched long, lean muscles flexing and moving with every roll of his hips. He studied the fine sheen of sweat slicking his skin, and wondered at the enraptured expression on his face. A warm smile curved his lips, his eyes bright as he met his gaze.

“You are perfect,” he said, gasping, his head dropping backwards in a soft noise of pleasure. “So perfect, my Gabriel…”

He wrapped one hand around his cock, and began to stroke himself in time with the movement of Gabriel’s hips. 

With what strength Gabriel still had, he held Samael’s hips a mere couple of inches above his own, giving him more freedom to thrust up with the speed he wanted. 

His eyes took in every detail of his mate, from the way his hair hung in his eyes, to the way the dimming light shone from his now glistening muscles. The way his feathers seemed to glow with grace waiting to shine. The way his lips curled into that smile that could make his knees weak. They might have gone weak, had he not already been laying down.

Hearing his mate’s voice take on that breathy tone nearly pushed him over the edge. He held himself back, though. He needed this to last. He needed to show his beloved the pleasure he so deserved. 

“I love you,” he breathed, head falling back onto the pillow. “My Samael…. My beautiful Samael." 

He panted a bit more heavily until his climax took him by surprise. His hips thrust up a little deeper into Sam, letting out a guttural cry of pleasure.

Samael moaned as Gabriel came, spilling hot and deep inside of him. His mate’s cry of pleasure fueled his own desire, his hand flying over his length more quickly. A moment later, Samael found his own release, trembling and gasping his way through it, rocking back desperately against Gabriel as they both rode out the aftershocks.

Spent and exhausted, he lowered himself to the bed beside his mate, just barely managing not to collapse on top of him. With an ungraceful grunt, he crawled to Gabriel’s side, burying his face into his neck. The collar around his neck dug into his windpipe at the weight of his head, and so Samael tried to reposition himself, to find some adjustment which would allow him to rest his head on Gabriel, but not suffocate himself at the same time. After a minute of trying, he gave up, laying his head upon the mattress and pressing his forehead against Gabriel’s shoulder.

“I missed you,” he breathed, dropping a soft kiss upon his shoulder. “I would not survive being parted from you again,” he said, his voice twisting with a barely suppressed sob. He curled against his mate instinctively, taking solace in his solid warmth. “I love you so much, Gabriel…”

What would they do? This world was a cruel, dark place for angels now. Gabriel had suggested cutting into his own skin to rip the sigils away, but who knew how deep those brands ran? If Samael carved deep within his neck only to discover the sigils ran even deeper, Gabriel would likely die from the wounds alone, bleeding out. If they were too deep he could well die before his Grace had a chance to save him, even if cutting through the layer of his vessel’s flesh would work.

“I cannot lose you,” he whimpered, weeping softly against his arm.

Gabriel curled an arm around his mate’s shoulders, pressing tired kisses to his forehead. He had missed this. Being intimate with the man he loved. It was a feeling he never thought he’d see again. 

“You won’t lose me,” he whispered. He pushed a few locks of hair out of Samael’s face and offered a tired smile. “Do you remember the promise I made to you when we first made love?" 

He held his arms firmly around his beloved Samael, softly cooing to him. He couldn’t stand to see rain in those eyes. 

"I promised forever. Whatever may come will come through. Here’s what I say to the boy that was burning so brightly, like the light from Orion above; I may have forgotten my reasons, but I still remember my vows." 

He pressed another kiss to Sam’s forehead, hoping to quell his love’s tears. “We’re not the same people we were before all of this. No matter how much we would want to believe otherwise. We’re both a little broken, but I know we can remember that joy. I’ll never regret it, or let you. We’ll remember the angels we were before all of this.”

He brushed a tear off of Samael’s cheek, moving down to kiss the other tears away. “The promise I made to stay, I’ll make it brand new. You will never have to live another day without my by your side. I will find a way to save us, and we’ll get away from this hell. We can create our own little Heaven. We’ll find a fledgling we can save and raise, we can get a dog, and we’ll never have to live through this ever again.”

Samael clung to Gabriel, drinking in his affections and loving words. “I remember it all. I love you…” he slurred, head beginning to ache as he curled against his mate. Here Gabriel was, able to construct the most beautiful, comforting words to soothe him, all while his lips ghosted over his skin, erasing his tears. Yet Samael couldn’t even string together coherent sentences, much less the sort of adorations that Gabriel deserved to hear.

“I want that,” he murmured, “all of it.” He scooted closer to Gabriel, adjusting his head on the mattress. “Maybe a cat, too…”

He allowed himself to entertain the possibility of it for a moment—a hidden home, where they could rest and live away from prying eyes and the reach of humans. A fledgling they might rescue and love as their own. No more endless pain, no more misery…

But how could they? Gabriel’s Grace remained sealed, and Samael’s had been clamped down so hard he couldn’t even think straight sometimes. The collar around his neck was not only constricting against his throat, but heavy upon his Grace, like an anchor dragging him down and making him less cognizant and more compliant.

He exhaled against his mate’s skin, allowing the warmth to lull him closer to sleep. He had just slept a while ago, but perhaps his injuries were demeaning more rest? It was a luxury he’d not known in years, and for the first time in so long, he felt safe and secure enough to indulge.

“Sleepy,” he mumbled, eyes shut, snuggling closer. He jumped awake briefly when he made an ill-advised movement, wincing at the sharp spike of pain, but within moments he had drifted back to sleep again. Content and warm in the presence of his mate, he fell into a slumber better than he’d ever known. 


	8. What I Did For Love

Gabriel held Samael in his arms until he was sure he was asleep. He couldn’t stand to make his mate live like this any longer. What kind of mate was he that he couldn’t give the man he loved everything he deserved? He sickened himself. 

He had to do something, and he had to do something now, before Sam was forced to live through more pain than absolutely necessary. That was, to say, he should have done something a long time ago.

When he was sure Samael was asleep, he got up and snuck downstairs to where he’d hidden his archangel blade. He grabbed it from underneath the floorboards and went to the bathroom, where he could see the sigils on his neck. He only needed to get two of them off, and he’d be able to rid himself of the other two without drastic measures.

For now, though, he knew this was going to hurt.

They had been branded onto his skin. Tracing them, he remembered the pain of the iron heated from holy fire. He gulped that pain down and set his mind to what he needed to do.

He turned the point of his blade to his throat and began cutting. He grit his teeth against the pain, refusing to cry out in fear of waking his beloved mate. He traced around the scarred flesh and pulled at the skin to peel it from his muscle. 

He dropped the separated flesh into the sink and clutched the side of the counter, trying to catch his breath. He could feel the blood draining, but he had to carve the other sigil off. He had to keep his promises to Samael. 

When he carved into his own flesh again, the pain was too much. He cried out, but he didn’t stop. He was only half done with this one. He had to keep going.

The sound of Gabriel’s cries awoke him, and he stumbled to his feet in alarm. He all but ran down the stairs, ignoring the pain seizing him with every move. He lumbered into the doorway of the bathroom, and was met with a grisly sight: blood everywhere, pooling thick and crimson in the sink. Gabriel wasn’t being attacked, but was cutting into his own skin. And all at once, Samael remembered Gabriel’s idea of slicing off the sigils with his blade, and he felt his blood run cold.

“You fool!” he barked, surging forward to snatch the blade from his hand. “What have you done?” It took Samael about three seconds to realize that the point of no return had long been crossed—Gabriel would likely bleed to death if this didn’t work. His only hope was to remove the second sigil and pray it was enough.

“Hold still!” he shouted, yanking his head back by the hair. He took a brief moment to get a good grip on the back of his neck, then continued where Gabriel had left off, carving into skin and muscle with haste.

Samael threw the detached skin into the sink, where it stuck to the porcelain with a sickening squelch. He lurched for a nearby towel, pressing it firmly against his neck.

“I should run you through with this myself,” he said, waving the blade, even as his voice lacked any bite. “You _idiot_.” Tears began streaming down his face, and he shook as he tried to stem the bleeding, the blade dropping from his hands to clatter upon the floor. “What were you _thinking_ doing this alone? You could have let me help you at least.”

He leaned over and pressed a trembling kiss to Gabriel’s forehead. “I would rather live the rest of eternity with this _thing_ on my neck than take even the slightest chance of loosing you. If you die from this, I have nothing. You understand? I told you I cannot live without you.”

Samael wanted to pull back the towel, to see if Gabriel’s desperate gambit had worked, but he was too terrified of his mate bleeding to death to stop putting pressure against the wound.

Gabriel took gasping breaths to steady himself. He could feel the sigils losing their effect, but those were serious wounds to heal. He was no longer bleeding, but it was still difficult to breathe. His eyes came up to meet his mate’s, almost looking ashamed that he’d woken him.

“I didn’t want you to worry,” he rasped. His familiar smirk tugged at his lips. “Take a breath, Samsquatch. You’re not going to have to live without me. I keep my promises.”

He moved the towel away from his neck, showing that the bleeding had stopped. The flesh was regenerating itself. Slowly, but he was healing. His breathing was becoming easier, and he was starting to level off. “See? I’m fine.” Now that he could heal himself, he would be fine. 

“Did not want me wor—. Gabriel, are you mad?” Samael hissed, teeth clenched. “What if it had not worked?! How _worried_ do you think I would have been if I’d awakened to find you dead upon the floor?”

While relieved at the halt of the bleeding, Gabriel’s smirk only served to enrage him further. “You cannot go off and make these sorts of choices all by yourself! We must work together if we’re to survive this world! You… you _fool_!”

Samael trembled, his face flushed and jaw clenched. All at once, he drew back his fist and struck Gabriel—which turned out to be a _terrible_ idea. Not only did Samael have no strength to speak of, but Gabriel’s Grace had reasserted itself enough to render his vessel sturdy as concrete. Samael howled in pain at the contact, but tried to ignore it—he probably deserved it for ever thinking a punch was a good idea. Still, he was fairly certain he’d broken something in his hand.

With Gabriel’s blood covering his hands and arms and torso, Samael simply turned around and stormed out of the room. What else could he say? Gabriel was only trying to help them both, even if he’d gone about it the wrong way. No doubt it was Samael’s own fault that his mate had resorted to such an extreme measure. After all, would he have done it if the situation was reversed? Samael did not know for certain, but he did know he wouldn’t be able to stand seeing Gabriel in the same agony he was in.

Leaning his back against the wall, he sank down to the floor in the hallway, tears streaming down his face. He felt angry and upset and miserable with his own pain. The years had changed them indeed, leaving them both more violent and more desperate than they’d ever been before. 

Gabriel had been punched and, for the first time in a long time, he felt no pain from it. It was a relief, but it was a cruel reminder that Samael’s own grace was still weak and controlled. He instantly moved to examine the injured hand. 

He wanted to snap at Sam, but he held that back. Arguing wouldn’t help the situation and he knew it. Instead, he worked on trying to heal the scarred tissue to rid himself of the remaining two sigils. They glowed softly, trying to combat the energy, but they were slowly disappearing.

“I couldn’t stand to see you in this much pain,” he said. “If you weren’t in such a condition, I’d have waited until you could help. It didn’t seem fair that I was in better health than you and I wanted to fix it." 

He wasn’t sure he could look into his mate’s eyes to see the disappointment.

"You’re right. I shouldn’t have done this on my own. I’m sorry." 

Samael sat on the floor and trembled, trying to control the fragments of his swirling emotions. “I… I should not have done that,” he whimpered between tears. “I am sorry, I should not… I should not have struck you. I was angry and upset, and so, so scared, Gabriel. I…”

Seeing Gabriel’s blood everywhere made Samael feel small and frightened in a way that little else had, even though the bleeding had ceased. He reached a trembling hand to the angel’s neck, fingertips tracing the glowing sigils. “Are you all right?” he breathed, lifting his terrified eyes to his mate’s.

Samael had never felt so useless—no, _worse_ than useless. Not only did he have nothing to offer Gabriel in his current state, but his mate had maimed himself in an attempt to help _him_. This was Samael’s fault.

“I would suffer an eternity with pain far worse than this if it meant you were safe, Gabriel,” he said. “But I understand why you did it.” His voice felt so small, barely a rustling murmur between his sobs. “I do not think I could stand to see you in this pain, either. But please, do not do something like this again without me. Please, Gabriel, please… I cannot… I would not survive it if…”

He lowered his forehead to Gabriel’s shoulder, muffling his quaking voice against his mate’s warmth. His ability to form words died, so he just clung to Gabriel and sobbed. 

Gabriel wrapped his arms around Sam, holding him close to his chest. He hated seeing his mate like this, and he hated not knowing what to do to fix it. He cooed and shushed his crying Samael, pressing affectionate kisses into his hair in an attempt to calm him.

“I promise I’ll never do something like this without you,” he said. “I promise. If you want to hit me, wait until we’re both back to normal. I deserve it." 

The glowing sigils faded, the scars healed enough where they were no longer active. Gabriel felt his Grace almost back to normal, and he could feel his wings. His wings that had become so dulled they may as well have been numb. He _felt_ them. 

He extended them and brushed the still sparse feathers against his mate. At this rate, he’d be at full power in a matter of hours. Until then, he could do his best to heal his beloved. 

He extended his Grace to Samael, healing some of the smaller cuts and bruises. “Please stop crying,” he whispered. 

He shivered at the touch of feathers against his skin, a soft noise escaping his lips at the sweeping touch of Gabriel’s Grace. It felt familiar and warm and so, so tender against his bruised and lonely spirit. And as much as he hated what Gabriel had done to restore it, he clung to him greedily, quivering as he drunk in the sensation. It had been so long since he’d felt any Grace at all—even his own.

His pain lessened as his mate healed him as much as he could. Skin knitted back together and purple, swollen bruises faded from deep purple to sickly yellow. The relief wasn’t total, but significant.

Samael went limp, slumping against Gabriel’s shoulder, tears still streaming from his eyes. He _tried_ to stop, and focused his attention instead on his mate’s soft, reassuring voice, shushing him and whispering kindnesses in his ear. It took several minutes, but Samael’s sobs finally subsided, his tears finally going dry.

“I am not going to strike you again,” he said, voice rough and wet. “I am sorry, I… should not have…”

He couldn’t finish the line of thought, so he buried his face against Gabriel’s neck instead, pressing his body as close as he could. “You are kind to me,” he murmured. “You always have been. But I am so weak, so powerless, and… You _frightened_ me, Gabriel. Had this gone wrong, I… I would not have had the power to save you, when before I could have done so with a single thought.”

Trembling, he pressed a kiss to his neck, drawing in an unsteady breath. “I can no more live without you than you could without me.” He paused a beat. “I am sorry for my outburst. My tears, all of it… I was frightened, Gabriel, frightened for _you_. The prospect of my own mortality does not worry me. The prospect of _yours_, however, strikes immeasurable terror into my very being. Please, promise me you will not take such risks anymore.”

He drew back to kiss Gabriel’s lips, resting his forehead against his. “I love you.” He sighed, his eyes drifting shut. “Your Grace feels amazing,” he admitted. “I have not felt Grace in so long—not even mine.”

Gabriel let his still strengthening grace shine outward, enveloping Samael in his warmth. He returned the kiss, running his fingers through his mate’s soft hair. 

“I’m sorry I frightened you,” he said. “I promise, I won’t do it again. But not being able to help you? Being no better off than a human? I couldn’t bear it. I couldn’t stand not being able to protect you. You may not give much thought to your own mortality, but the idea of losing you terrifies me.”

He pressed a kiss to his mate’s forehead, letting a little more grace slip into him to heal more of his lesser wounds. “I let myself suffer through unspeakable tortures because I had lost you. I don’t think I would want to live if I lost you again. I had to do something. I’m just sorry it had to be like this.”

Samael leaned against Gabriel, soaking in the soft warmth of his Grace. “Perhaps we should both strive to be careful, then,” he murmured, resting his head on Gabriel’s shoulder. “That way, neither of us will have to know the terrible pain of losing the other ever again. And we will protect each other from now on…”

He twisted his head, struggling against the confines of his collar. Well, at least if the collar could be removed, he would protect Gabriel. But what if it couldn’t be removed? It had only been a theory. He would become a liability to Gabriel, weak and unable to help with anything. No better than human.

He rested in the arms of his mate several long minutes, relishing the burning warmth of his body and the gentle light of his Grace. He sat up and ran his fingertips across his neck, inspecting for wounds. None were present, and he sighed in relief, dipping forward to press a kiss to the once-wounded skin.

Samael trailed his hands to his mate’s wings, still shredded and mostly bare, but regenerating slowly. “How do you feel? Are you well?” he asked Gabriel. He carefully brushed a wing joint with his thumb, examining the texture of the newly-grown skin. He took care to avoid the new feathers, fearing it might bring him pain. “Do your wings still hurt?”

Gabriel eyed the collar around Samael’s neck. His praying days had waned significantly these days, but he prayed. He prayed he could be able to remove that horrible thing, if for no other reason that to make his mate more comfortable. If he couldn’t remove it, he would gladly continue healing his beloved Sam. He would be more than wiling to continue protecting him. Nothing would change.

As Samael pressed a kiss to his healed skin, he hummed. His wings pressed into the other’s touch, craving his soothing touch. “I feel much better,” he reassured. “My wings are a little sore, but they’ll be fine.”

He ran his fingers along the metal around Sam’s neck, worrying his lip nervously. “How are you feeling?” 

Seeing how Gabriel’s wings pressed against his hand, he continued his gentle, soothing touches. Samael knew well how wonderful a careful, loving touch could feel, and he wanted so desperately to make Gabriel feel comfortable and happy….

“I am glad you are well,” he breathed, kissing his lips. 

At the fingertips tracing his collar, he swallowed around a lump in his throat. Truthfully, he felt stone-heavy and slow again, the sigils bearing down on his Grace in the wake of his angry outburst. The metal felt ice cold and had constricted against his windpipe, making breathing more difficult than usual. Even thinking had become more difficult—a ‘safety’ measure put in place by those who’d formed the collar. They hadn’t wanted to risk him escaping.

“I am fine,” he lied, lowering his head to Gabriel’s shoulder, hiding his face against his neck. He wondered if his mate could see through his ruse. “My wounds are healing.”

That much was true, at least. The broken bones of his wings felt nearly mended (though he had not stretched them to find out), and his swollen eye felt nearly normal. Numerous cuts and bruises had faded, and the mere act of moving didn’t cause him nearly the pain it had before.

He sighed and rested against Gabriel, quietly hopeful for the future. Perhaps they could escape all of this… “When we leave this place,” he began, “I want a dog. I always thought they were such loyal, adorable creatures.”

Gabriel could tell his mate wasn’t fine. He couldn’t spend centuries with him and not be able to tell when he was lying, but he was glad his wounds were healing. 

He gently ran his fingers along Samael’s wing, attempting not to put any pressure on it. He wasn’t sure how healed his wing was, but he could no longer restrain himself from feeling his mate’s feathers. 

“We’ll get two dogs,” he said, voice soft and soothing. “We’ll get two dogs and we’ll live on an island, away from humanity, where nothing can get to us. It’ll just be us and whatever family we might have." 

He pressed a few tender kisses to the side of his beloved’s head. He wished his grace would heal itself so he could try to rid Samael of that wretched collar. It wasn’t fair that he had to suffer like that.

“Hmm?” It took a few seconds for Gabriel’s words to make sense. “Oh, that sounds… nice.” He snuggled closer to his mate, relishing the feeling of soft kisses on the side of his head. His wings still ached, the bones tender and not quite healed, but pressed into the touch anyway. It stung, but it felt good, too, as a soothing, gentle wash of Grace hummed through his mate’s fingers.


	9. I'll Be At Your SIde

Samael tried for several minutes to speak, but the power of the collar weighed him down so heavily he slurred whenever he tried to speak. This resulted in several unpleasant noises leaving his throat, until finally he gave up for a few minutes, just resting quietly against Gabriel. The feel of his fingers stroking his wing lightly gave him chills, reminding him of happier, more peaceful days.

“It’s th’ collar,” he finally managed to say, tongue heavy like syrup. “Whenever I get… angry it… somethin’ innit activates.” He drew closer to Gabriel, shivering. “ ‘s hard to think. Or move.” He took several deep breaths, trying to gather his voice. “Feels so heavy… Like I can’t breathe. Like I’m gonna sleep.”

He pressed his face into Gabriel’s neck, tears falling from his eyes. He felt so ashamed he didn’t know what to do with himself. “ ‘m sorry I lied. Didn’t… didn’t want you to worry…”

Gabriel’s heart shattered each time the attempted speech turned into incoherent sounds. He could hear the effort, but he could do nothing to help. Not until his grace had recovered more. All he could do was sit there and use whispers of energy to try and knit together his mate’s injuries. 

When Samael finally began to speak, he felt his heart drop into his chest. He was worried that the collar was affecting him more than he’d been letting on. He tried to stay quiet, for fear of worsening the situation.

The tears on his neck, however, caused his own eyes to water. He dared not try to remove the collar yet. What if he made it worse? What if his weak attempts tightened the metal band until the angel could no longer breathe?

He looked up and away from his mate, trying desperately to hide the conflict he felt. He had to remain confident that he could remove it when he was at full power. He had to. He couldn’t bear it to see Samael suffer any longer than it took for him to regain his energy.

Finally, when he was sure he wasn’t about to cry, he buried his cheek into Sam’s hair. His hands continued to pet his mate’s wings, his just-barely-there touch smoothing out any rustled feathers. 

“It’s fine,” he tried to reassure. “It’ll be fine. Once I’ve got my energy back, we’ll get that collar off, and you’ll be right as rain." 

He pressed a gentle kiss to the top of Samael’s head and rested his hands on the other’s shoulders. “Let’s get you back to the bed. Alright? It’ll be a lot more comfortable for you there. And I promise, no more secret mutilations.” He tried to force a smile, though he knew it was far too soon to joke about this.

Samael leaned heavily against Gabriel, greedy for his soothing touches and warm Grace. He always felt so cold anymore, but with his mate there with him, wrapping his arms around him, he began to feel warm for the first time in so long.

But the collar was too tight, even moreso than normal, and Gabriel was right—he needed calm and rest. Samael nodded slowly, struggling to get to his feet. It felt so embarrassing to have to lean on Gabriel as much as he did, but his legs would not cooperate with him. He mumbled half-formed apologies as he wobbled unsteadily, eyes stinging with tears in his shame. He bit his lower lip and tried to focus, to force his mind to clear so he could concentrate more readily on walking, but the collar burned in response. The more he tried to fight it, the heavier its influence became, dragging him down like an anvil.

Finally, an eternity later, he collapsed on the bed, panting helplessly, wheezing against the too-tight collar. He had to calm down, to relax, or it’s constrict until he couldn’t breathe… and he didn’t want to turn blue and drop into unconsciousness in front of Gabriel. His human vessel had often gone through the motions of dying, all without ever being able to actually die, and it was no pleasant thing. Even more pressing, Samael had no desire to subject Gabriel to such a display… but if he didn’t calm himself, if he didn’t slow the process down somehow, he’d have little choice.

He tugged helplessly at Gabriel’s hand, silently begging him to lie down with him. He felt warm and calm earlier when he’d been in Gabriel’s arms. Perhaps it would help him relax if he would embrace him again. 

Gabriel stayed close to Samael, ready to help him if something happened. His mate seemed to want to walk on his own, and he wasn’t going to stop him. Not because he didn’t care, but because he knew Sam didn’t want to feel completely useless. He loved him too much to take that away.

When the other collapsed onto the bed, he didn’t need to be told to join him. He laid down and pulled his mate closer, curling his still healing wings around the other’s form. 

He pressed a kiss into Samael’s hair and hummed a soft, lazy, nonsensical tune. Whatever he hummed slowly turned into gentle singing. Breathing the Latin easily, he sang to soothe his mate’s worries. 

Samael wheezed and choked against the shrinking collar, burying his face against Gabriel’s chest. He was losing the battle to stay calm, a wave of dizziness beginning to overtake him, and he knew his lips were turning blue from lack of oxygen. Unable to do anything about it, Samael gave in, clinging to Gabriel and preparing himself for the agony of suffocating to death without actually being able to die.

Gabriel’s lips pressed against his hair, and he began to hum a tune. The tune turned to singing, and as his entire world narrowed down to his mate and his song, the collar began to ease its grip. As Samael hovered close to unconsciousness, he listened to the music and soaked up Gabriel’s warmth, until finally he could breathe again.

The heavy, confusing influence of his bonds were still there, but Samael allowed himself to drift to sleep. In his mate’s arms, he knew he would remain safe and sound. 

As much as Gabriel wanted to remove that damn collar from his mate’s neck, he wasn’t going to pull another stunt like he just had. He was going to stay with his beloved and watch over him until he was back to full strength. It wouldn’t be long now, a far more comforting thought that it might have been a few hours ago.

He continued singing softly in Latin as Samael slept, if only so the room wouldn’t fall silent again. He routinely pressed kisses into the other’s hair so he would know he was still there. He felt his Grace strengthening gradually until his wings were nearly whole. He curled his wings around his mate, silently vowing to protect him for the rest of their days.

Even through the haze of sleep, Samael vaguely heard the sound of Gabriel’s singing. He sighed, drawing closer to his warmth and the familiar Grace. What had been a dim light before now burned hotter, surrounding him in a blanket of safety and contentment.

The collar released its hold on him, the weight and agony evaporating away. And with the presence of Gabriel, Samael felt almost as though he were floating.

He stirred, snuggling closer to Gabriel. “You are warm,” he murmured, and glanced over his shoulder to glimpse the blanket he could feel–and nearly started when he saw wings curled around him, bright and huge and almost full. As though they had never been burned at all…

“You are recovering,” he breathed, reaching out a hand to drag through the familiar feathers. Soft and warm, but Samael could not feel them, not the way he once did, not in his current state. But he could touch and admire, and so he did. They felt soft and pliant under his hands, and he dragged one wing closer, inspecting it carefully.

He leaned forward and pressed a kiss to the arch of a feathered wing joint, sighing in relief. HIs breath fanned out and rustled feathers of spun gold.

“I am glad your strength returns to you,” finally said, leaning back against Gabriel, pulling the wing with him. It was not much, but at least he could groom it. Such beautiful wings deserved care, and Samael knew Gabriel had not known tender touches in so long.

The Archangel slowly nodded and smiled softly as he felt his beloved’s hands card through his feathers. It had been far too long since they had been shown proper care. He could not remember the last time his wings did not feel the searing pain he had unfortunately grown so accustomed to.

He gently pressed his wing into his mate’s hand. He loved feeling those hands on him. He had missed them more than words could ever hope to describe. He only hoped now that he would never have to live another day without Samael in his arms. 

“I would have been content to live in pain for the rest of my life, if I had never found you,” he muttered before he could stop himself. “Samael, you give me purpose. You are the only reason I’ve found the strength to carry on through all of this. You are so much more remarkable than you care to believe.”

Samael glanced up at Gabriel, his eyebrows edging upwards as his mate spoke. He wanted to dispel such a notion of being content in a life of pain, but when his words turned towards him, he could not hold that bright, amber gaze.

He did not know what to say. Samael did not feel remarkable in the least, and…

“I thought you dead,” he murmured, his fingers threading underneath Gabriel’s feathers to dig into muscle underneath. He kneaded the new flesh gently, careful to not disturb any growing feathers. “I had no strength. I had no hope. I had long given up.”

He turned his head, meeting Gabriel’s eyes once more. “I do not _feel_ remarkable. But to hear it from you makes me feel loved.” A tiny smile warmed the corners of his mouth. “And I love _you_, Gabriel. Fiercely. I am embarrassed of my weak state, but would any threat pose itself to you, I would yet try to rip it asunder. To me, you are perfection and joy and the very essence of the sunlight. I could never find a word to describe you, but ‘remarkable’ is the best I have.”

He turned in his mate’s arms, his range of motion fluid and easy since Gabriel had healed him. He lifted his hands to stroke Gabriel’s face, his thumbs tracing his cheeks. He threaded his fingers in his hair and bent his head to kiss him.

Slowly, he dragged his hands downward, tangling them once more in his feathers. “May I groom them?” He murmured against his lips. “Or would you have me wait until they have fully healed?”

It pained Gabriel to hear those words leave his beloved’s mouth. It wasn’t out of some sense of entitlement that he believed Samael should _never_ have given up the idea of finding him. No, it was the reality that the loss of hope grew far beyond what he had personally experienced. It pained him to know that Samael’s hope was torn from him, as it had been done to himself. 

“You may not feel remarkable, Sam, but you’re still breathing. I won’t presume you’ve stayed alive throughout these years, but the fact of the matter is you are breathing _now_. There are those of us that aren’t so lucky. You may have given up hope, but there is still hope for us.”

He embraced his mate a little tighter to his own body. “If all goes according to plan, there won’t be need for promises like that. We’ll be far away from any threats that may harm us, even if we have to go to another realm to escape it. I’m not going to let you be hurt again.”

The fingers in his feathers were a welcome sensation. It had been far too long since he’d been groomed. There was still the slight sting in his wings that hadn’t been healed quite yet, but he wanted to give his beloved some semblance of normality. He nodded, smiling softly. “I would like nothing more than to let you groom me.”

Samael smiled at his mate, though it felt subdued and tired. “It yet feels as thought I shall awaken to find this has all been a dream,” he admitted, leaning forward to press a kiss to Gabriel’s shoulder. “I dreamed of you so every time I slept, beloved. I thought it the only image of you I should ever get to see again.”

He shut his eyes, and tried to banish away the awful thoughts. “I hope we shall never again endure such horrors.” A part of him felt ridiculously grateful at Gabriel’s declaration that he’d never allow Samael to come to such grievous harm ever again. Samael wished deep within his heart to do the same, to protect his mate as fiercely as Gabriel might protect him. But without his Grace at his disposal, he was but a gnat compared to Gabriel’s might.

What if his weakness came to disgust him? What if the collar could not be removed, and the sigils underneath resisted removal, and Samael were forever weak? Would Gabriel eventually tire of him and go in search of a more worthy mate? Samael did not truly think such a thing might happen, but… his weakened state made him question everything. It made him worry.

With permission given, Samael carded his fingers through bright, golden feathers, marveling at the softness against his skin. Careful to avoid spots which had yet to regain their plumage, he gently touched and caressed Gabriel’s wings, occasionally lowering his lips to press against them.

“You have such beautiful wings,” he murmured, an involuntary flutter of his own wings ruffling the air. They felt stronger than they had in ages, healed of the broken bones and wounds they’d held just hours earlier. But without Samael’s Grace flowing through them, they were just dull, extraneous appendages, forced into permanent manifestation for the pleasure of his prior human owners. He’d seen a glimpse of his wings since Gabriel had healed them—clean and more comfortable, but with none of their prior luster or warmth.

Perhaps one day he’d be able to share the same joy with Gabriel once again, but for now he simply enjoyed the feeling of Gabriel’s wings under his hand, the warm flow of Gabriel’s Grace soothing to Samael’s very core.

He continued to groom his mate’s perfect, bright wings without much agenda, moving slowly from spot to spot. Samael could think of nowhere he’d rather be. 


End file.
